


Crown of Shadows

by dark_roast



Series: King of Monsters [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_roast/pseuds/dark_roast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to <i>King of Monsters</i>. It's been more than a year since Loki took the throne of Jotunheim. Rebuilding his realm and caring for his people have kept him busy, and almost entirely distracted from the strange visions that trouble him. Then Thor arrives in Jotunheim with unexpected news: Jane Foster and her team have discovered a strange energy readings throughout the multiverse. Except in Jotunheim.  </p>
<p>Loki reluctantly agrees to let Jane's team travel to his realm. But when events take an unexpected turn, Loki is forced to team up with SHIELD to stop the destruction of Jotunheim, and Midgard, and all the Nine Realms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Breyrkekolf shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Likely, the alfin's ears hadn't caught the whisper of his own grimulf-hide boots on the stone. But, Loki heard that soft, impatient scrape. He was aware he hadn't spoken in a long while.

"I thought I made myself clear," he said. "I am not to be worshiped."

"Majesty," Breyrkekolf's voice held a hint of reproach. "Your people only wish to honor you."

"This is..." Loki lifted his hand and then let it fall to his side.  _Embarrassing,_ was the word on the tip of his tongue. _This is embarrassing._

He walked a few steps along the jagged ridge overlooking the valley that stretched between Laufey's palace and the broad plain where the Bifrost had burned a black circle into the stone. Breyrkekolf followed a few paces behind.

Ice and wind had not yet scoured away the Bifrost's runes. Loki could still read them easily from where he stood. The far wall of the valley was split by deep crevasses, and in places the stone had crumbled away to craggy jumbles of boulders and broken spires. The monstrosity carved into the canyon wall looked no less ridiculous from a different angle. Loki stood with Breyrkekolf at a vertiginous height above the valley floor, and the bas-relief was so enormous that it rose nearly to the level of Loki's boots.

The carving was rough-hewn and massive, but looked as though it were just about to breathe or blink. It was instantly recognizable as Loki. It gazed down into the valley with a serene smile on its lips, its hands spread, palms upturned as if to bestow a blessing. On its left-hand side were three ettin, and on its right were three alfin, all carved at the same height, but all much smaller than the carving of Loki. The carving was unfinished, surrounded by a scaffold, and when the stone cutting was done, the ettin craftsmen would inlay it with bits of ice, like the carvings of Odin and Frigga in their abandoned temple.

Not so long ago, Loki would have gloried in such a towering monument built to him. He might even have commanded the jotunar to built it, and much more, in tribute to him. Knowing he would have done so embarrassed him nearly as much the monument itself.

It had been his hands that opened the Bifrost into Jotunheim, and nearly destroyed the realm. He had led the Chitauri to Jotunheim. More lives lost, more devastation heaped on an already crippled realm. He could not bring back the dead, but he had done his best to be a true king to the jotunar. A better king than Laufey. The sort of king he had always arrogantly assured himself he would be, if given his rightful chance to rule -- by which he had meant, of course, a better king than Thor. His own innocence astounded him. He was both grieved and thankful at the loss of it.

He hadn't wished to rule Jotunheim. The realm had been thrust upon him as punishment. He had given himself to the Casket of Ancient Winters, and he had saved Jotunheim, not from any selfless, heroic motive, but in the hope that the Casket would kill him. It hadn't.

In Loki's mind, the Casket echoed his disquiet. Its crystalline song had not rung pure since the moment it had absorbed Loki's magic, and bound itself to him. The Casket's song had become a rope of dark and light twined together. Ever changing, never at rest.

Gray clouds broke apart and chased one another across the sky, borne on an icy gust that lifted Loki's black hair from the fur collar of his violet coat. Jotunheim had none of the oils he had used in Asgard to subdue his hair, to render the curls he loathed sleek and straight. The small horns that curved from his forehead toward his ears kept his hair out of his face. Sometimes, he braided his hair or tied it back with a scrap of leather. Mostly, he left it to curl and wave in its own unruly, alfin way.

Breyrkekolf said, "It displeases you, Majesty. I shall tell the stone cutters to destroy it."

"No," Loki said sharply. "Absolutely not."

"Shall I bid them to refashion their work? Perhaps carve you in your Asgardian form?"

Loki drew a breath, and then released it slowly through his nose. "Let them finish, Breyrkekolf. I shall reward them.  But, there is far better use for their tools. The palace is falling to pieces, and Utgard is nearly a ruin."  
  
Breyrkekolf bent his head. "Yes, majesty."

"However," Loki admitted begrudgingly, "this is magnificent,"

"There are tales in the old books of the ettin mastery of ice and stone," Breyrkekolf said enthusiastically. "I suppose the craftsmen hadn't much opportunity to express themselves while Laufey ruled them. His desires lay elsewhere." The alfin prince flicked his chin at the distant range of sharp-toothed mountains rising from the misty horizon. "The peaks of Aurmir were a wonder of the Nine Realms, and many traveled here to gaze upon them, millennia ago."

"Are you telling me Jotunheim had _tourists_?"

"If the old books are to be believed."

"A wonder of the Nine Realms indeed."

Breyrkekolf smiled briefly, and then his expression turned grave once more. "Sire. I would speak my mind to you, if you would hear me."

"Speak," Loki said.

"You are troubled. For many months, you have been troubled. We... that is, your royal council... we are concerned."

"My royal council has far more pressing matters with which to concern itself."

"No matter more pressing than the well-being of our king. You are Jotunheim — "

"Yes, yes. I know," Loki cut him off. " I am Jotunheim, and Jotunheim is me. I have lost count of the times Thistilbardi has repeated that. As if I could forget it."

He walked a few steps away from Breyrkekolf, and gazed out across the valley at the landscape of wind-blasted, dark crags rising from a shroud of white. Shifting blue cloud-shadows flowed across the snow.

"Under my rule," Loki said, "Jotunheim is gaining strength, for the first time in more than a thousand years."

"You have given us much," Breyrkekolf agreed.

"No more than I've taken from you."

"We are concerned _for you,_ majesty. You are more than a king to us. I know you understand my meaning. Don't pretend that you — "

"You overstep yourself." Loki injected a drop of venom into his voice.

Breyrkekolf drew back, eyes widening. He, and every other jotun, still feared the return of the Loki who had first arrived in their realm. The Loki who would cheerfully have slaughtered them all, and razed Jotunheim to a smoking cinder.

Breyrkekolf's sister would have pressed the issue. Even at his worst, Loki had never succeeded in frightening Brisenndyr very much. It mattered little to her whether she died, only that she died well. Being killed by Loki apparently counted as a good death. Her brother was no coward. Loki had seen Breyrkekolf fight. But Breyrkekolf was a different sort of mortal.

He bowed his head to Loki, and pressed his fist to his heart. "Forgive me, Majesty. I meant no disrespect."

***

Jotunheim had been Loki's home for more than a year, and he still thought of Koninghöll, the brooding stone palace on its sheer escarpment of icy rock, as Laufey's palace.

Koninghöll had stood at the mouth of the narrow valley for tens of thousands of years, and each successive monarch of Jotunheim had modified it, adding spires and winding halls and parapets, until the palace became a sprawling maze of rooms and corridors and narrow staircases cut for an ettin's long stride. Most of the palace lay deserted, save for spiderwebs and rotted furnishings. Loki had not yet explored a tenth of it. Jotunheim's capital city of Utgard surrounded the palace in a ragged ring of stone structures, many still lying in ruins from the devastation of the Bifrost. Yet in Utgard, as in all of Jotunheim, the jotunar were rebuilding. 

Two ettin guards bowed to Loki as he passed the archway leading to the great hall. The palace staff were accustomed to their sovereign prowling the corridors by night, like an unquiet ghost.

For a little while, it had been better. He had been better.  After the victory over the Chitauri, Loki told Thor that he and Sif and her Warriors Three need not return to Asgard immediately. They were welcome to stay in Jotunheim. Stay they had, for several weeks, while the dead were buried, and songs sung of them, and cups of potent skadrida lifted in their honor. Loki had been content.

Thor had suggested that Jotunheim need no longer be a forbidden realm. Asgard still thought of it as a land of ice and darkness and monsters, but Loki could change that perception, if he wished to.

Loki had promised to think on it.

"You could take a bride from Asgard," Thor suggested, his voice turning gentle. Careful. "Or even from Vanaheim. To secure the peace between realms."

A knot tightened in the center of Loki's chest.

"You could take your pick," Thor added with a smile. "After all, you are a king, brother."

"A king of Jotunheim," Loki pointed out.

Thor shrugged.  "A king is a king. I doubt any lady you choose will say no to becoming a queen."

As if they were not speaking of a specific someone. As if Loki could pick any noble daughter of Asgard or Vanaheim with a biddable temperament and an agreeable face, marry her, and think no more about it.

After Thor and the others departed, Loki had a realm to rule, and a people to care for, and for a while, his attention was taken up with the business of being a king. Not the glory and the grandeur, but the thousand tiny details his tutors in Asgard had taught him to expect. Most of his jotunar seemed to like him well enough. Better than Laufey, at any rate. Some of the ettin muttered that an alfin wasn't fit to rule them; some of the alfin muttered that Laufey's bastard wasn't fit rule them. Some of the ettin and alfin agreed that Loki ought to hie himself back to Asgard, where he belonged. Ettin still fought alfin. Alfin clans still fought one another. The alfin had no rights under ettin law, and the ettin had no rights in the clan laws of the alfin. Jotunar were starving, homeless, sick, crippled, mad. Food and aid needed to be sent to all corners of the realm. The list of difficulties large and small, seemed endless. But every problem could be solved, given time and intelligence. Loki had both in abundance.

He had become what the Allfather raised him to be: king of Jotunheim. An annoying realization, to be sure. But Asgard seemed far away from him now. What he had been — a prince of Asgard and briefly its king — seemed like a dream, or a tale told round the fire.

Loki stopped walking. He was deep within the palace. The echoes of his footfalls died away, leaving the corridor in silence. The ever-present balls of luminescent lichen burned low and dim in their metal cages, as if no one had come to replenish them in a long while. It didn't matter. His eyes were sharp, as were his ears.

He heard it. A scrape of metal on stone. A soft, mocking chitter. He stiffened. He didn't turn around. There was nothing behind him. Nothing but empty rooms. All the same, his heart began to beat faster.

There was  no possibility that Chitauri soldiers were hiding in the palace. Loki had driven a blade of ice into their leader's chest. The soldiers could not survive, cut off from their hive mind. Even if they could have, it had been months since the Chitauri attack on Jotunheim. Months, in a frigid clime, and the Chitauri were cold-blooded. They would have perished long before now.

Logic and common sense did not stop Loki from prowling the halls late at night. From searching the empty rooms, one by one. Looking for the stray, shed scale in a corner. For the smell of their flesh: salt and metal and bitter musk, a smell he would never forget.

A clicking noise rose from the shadows in front of him, followed by a hiss. The fluttering shadows cast by the low-burning balls of lichen formed crouching bodies and reptilian faces.

They were not real. They _were not_.

When he approached them, fists clenched and muscles so tight he trembled, the shadow-shapes melted away into nothing, yet his dread still stuck in the back of his throat like a fish bone. He feared there would come a night when he surrendered to sleep, warm under a heap of furs, and woke inside a seamless metal orb barely bigger than a coffin, and filled with flat gray light, with that reptilian stink in his nostrils and his throat, mingled with the smells of his own blood and terror. Knowing there would be no rescue, because everyone in Asgard believed the chaos beyond the Bifrost had torn him to bits.

Loki turned around and retraced his steps. The skittering and the chuckling followed him toward the section of the palace where the lights burned more brightly.

When he passed the tall archway leading to the great hall, the two ettin guards hall had their heads bent together. One of them laughed, low and rumbling. They heard his footsteps, and they bowed to him, fists pressed to their hearts. As the guards both straightened to their full height once more, Loki was struck by the sudden certainty that they had been discussing him. That they had been laughing at him. That their craggy faces carried hints of malice, of secrecy.

_They are hiding the Chitauri from you._

A perfectly reasonable suspicion. His step faltered.

 _No,_ he told himself. _There are no Chitauri hiding in Jotunheim._

Not for the first time, he found himself wishing Tortrigg still lived. He missed the ettin's constant, silent presence behind him. But, Tortrigg lay under a cairn of stone with the others slain in the Chitauri battle. Loki still felt the loss like a knife wound not yet healed. This was what it was to care for mortals, with their fleeting, fragile lives.

Brisenndyr materialized from the shadows of a side passage. The alfin princess appeared so silently, that Loki was not sure she was real, at first. She inclined her head to Loki, hand over her heart.

"Majesty. I hoped I might find you yet awake."

"Is there something wrong?"

"No. Only that... sire, you seem troubled."

Loki hissed in irritation.

Brisenndyr had the good manners to look embarrassed. "I only speak so because — "

"Have I not provided for this realm? And its people? Am I not an improvement over Laufey?"

"Sire," Brisenndyr said reproachfully. She sounded so like her brother Breyrkekolf, it made Loki even angrier.

"Is that not sufficient for you?" he demanded. "Are you now all so complacent, that you feel the need to manufacture entertainment?"

"Sire," she said again. "You mistake me. I only wish to offer you my companionship."

Loki drew back in surprise. He had not expected that from her. Although, in retrospect, he should have. He had been too preoccupied with ruling his realm, with hunting Chitauri in the shadows. Her suggestions had been so subtle and so infrequent that, after each one, he told himself he had misinterpreted her meaning.

"No," he said. "I thank you, but no."

In the flickering shadows of the corridor, Brisenndyr's expression was difficult to read.

"You are mortal," Loki said. "I am not. As beautiful as you are, Brisenndyr, we are not... suited. Even if we were, it would be unwise of me to show a preference for the alfin, in my choice of a royal consort."

Brisenndyr's eyebrows rose slowly, and the corners of her mouth curved. "Majesty," she said gently. "You mistake me."

"I am certain I do not."

"Not my general meaning, no. But as to the particulars — we are not suited _at all_. With respect, sire."

Loki smiled wryly.

"I agree it would be much wiser for you to not to show any preference for alfin or ettin." She shrugged. "An Asgardian bride would be acceptable. I suppose."

"I'm pleased you approve of my theoretical wife."

"You do not intend to take a queen, sire?"

"I had not given it much thought," Loki lied.

"But, for now?"

"You are a princess, Brisenndyr. Chosen of your people. Don't offer yourself so cheaply. Not even to me."

"Your pretty manners are not alfin at all," she said, amused. "The nights are much colder here than in Asgard."

"Good night, Brisenndyr."

She gave him a graceful bow. "And to you, sire."

Loki turned his back on her, and walked away. He might have accepted her offer, had he not grown to respect her.

By the time he had crossed the short distance to his own chambers, he was no longer thinking of the Chitauri. Thor was correct: to wed the king of Jotunheim was still to wed a king, and Loki could take his pick of all the noble daughters in Asgard and Vanaheim. All of them, except one.

Her father was neither wealthy, nor illustrious. Freyr Ragnarrson had fought at Odin's side in the long-ago war against the Frost Giants. For Freyr's service, the Allfather granted Freyr the rule of a small, backwater world in Vanaheim, called Hjallsmuli. Freyr's wife had borne him seven sons and one daughter, named Sigyn.

This only daughter of a minor nobleman was practical. Much too practical to ever suppose one of Odin's sons might meet her gaze in a throne room crowded with courtiers and, having seen her, might take another, longer look.

But, Loki had.

***


	2. Chapter 2

Yutta was fast asleep in a corner of Loki's chambers, curled beneath one of the windows. Loki bent and touched the ettin servant girl on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and squinted sleepily up at him. Then, realizing who it was that had woken her, Yutta scrambled to her feet. She was little more than a child, but because she was ettin, she stood almost as tall as Loki's shoulders.

"Sire, forgive me." She bobbed him a curtsey, her hand clutched to her heart. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's all right, Yutta. But, you should have been in bed hours ago."

"I thought you might require..." She twisted her hands in the front of her long, shapeless gown, and looked about the room, seeking something Loki might need her to do. The room was spotless, everything in its place.

"I told you before," Loki said, striving not to sound as impatient as he felt. "You needn't wait up for me."

"Yes, sire."

When Loki had first come to Jotunheim, Yutta could not even venture into the same room as he, without quaking in terror. Until, on a whim, Loki had offered her one of the currant cakes his mother had tucked into his surcoat before he'd left Asgard. For the price of one currant cake, Yutta had become completely devoted to him.

"Go," Loki told her more forcefully.

"Yes, sire. I wish you a peaceful night."

"Thank you, Yutta."

She left, pulling the outer door shut. Her light footfalls went padding down the corridor, and faded away.

Loki's royal chambers were austere, compared to the splendor he had taken for granted in Asgard. The rooms were huge, with soaring celings, built for ettin monarchs, and lit by glowing balls of blue lichen tucked into metal sconces set high on the walls. The outer room held a long table Loki had piled with books, and a low couch with embroidered cushions. The grimulf-bone arms of the couch were burnished to deep amber, carved with interlocking spirals that invited Loki's fingers to trace them. Neither tapestries nor paintings hung on the dark stone walls. The blocks of stone were intricately fitted together, incised with the same sweeping arcs as the ridges on jotun skin, and glimmering with bits of mica. At first, Loki had found his chambers unbearably gloomy, but it wasn't long before he realized his mistake.

His bed chamber was dominated by a bed that could comfortably have fit three ettin, and which was piled deep in furs and pillows. At its head loomed a monstrous thicket of interlocking horns taken from countless different beasts. The ancestral bed of kings, according to Thistilbardi.

Opposite the doorway of the bed chamber, a long, narrow window looked out across the realm's wild landscape. Only one of Jotunheim's twelve moons shone over the peaks of Aurmir. Loki could not yet name all the moons by sight, but Jotunjaldr was easily recognizable, hanging low and swollen in the sky like a baleful yellow eye. Despite the large window, which had a pane not of glass, but of ice, Loki's bedroom was warm enough that Loki was never cold in it. 

He undid the polished bone buttons of his alfin coat, slipped out of it, and tossed it across the foot of the bed. Then he sat down on the bed to tug off his grimulf-hide boots. He undressed, and left his clothing in a heap on the floor.

Naked, he crossed the bedroom and stepped through an archway on its far side. This innermost room was the reason the royal chambers remained warm even on the bitterest nights. It was very small. Tortrigg would have had to crouch to avoid cracking his skull on the ceiling. There was nothing in the room, except an oval pool with a raised stone lip and steps leading down into the water. Plumes of steam wreathed the surface of the pool, rising from the hot spring that fed it. Loki only needed to descend a single ettin-sized step, before he was submerged to the middle of his chest. Immediately, the tension began to ease from his back and his shoulders.

Lifting his hands from the water, Loki conjured an illusion of Sigyn in the pool at his side, the steam flushing her golden skin pink and winding her long, dark hair into tight curls. It was not the inky black of his hair, but a luxuriant coffee-brown that caught sparks of red in the sunlight. He had never seen her unclothed, thus he had to use his imagination. But, without her mind shining behind her eyes, she was a lovely, blank-faced doll. Less than a doll. He could have touched a doll. He swept his hand through the illusion, and banished it.

He tipped his head back, resting it on the rounded rim of the pool. The ceiling was inlaid with an intricate mosaic of sea creatures and water weeds.

He had been so resolved at first. So determined to begin again. So grateful, so... _pleased_ , to have a second chance, to have occupation for his mind. To be needed. How he had sneered at Thor for turning soft when he'd been exiled to Midgard. But Loki realized now what being cast out had meant to Thor. Loki could never put right what he had done on Midgard, but in Jotunheim, there was hard work, and the rewards of hard work. His realm grew stronger, and his people healed, with every day that passed. That should have been enough, and yet, without the rage and the envy that had been his close companions for so many years, other emotions crept close, filling in his empty places.

Loki shifted his weight and slid under the water. There was nothing to see beneath the surface. Only the stone walls of the pool, falling away into darkness below the steps. Loki stayed underwater until his lungs burned, and then he broke the surface, shaking his wet hair from his face.

What he needed was to touch Yggdrasil, to feel the tree's strength flowing through him, feel its roots grounding him. He had not done so in a very long time. Magic had always come easily to him, and his bond with the Casket made jotun magic effortless. He was out of practice. 

He closed his eyes. Drew in a slow breath, and released it just as slowly. His mind touched the Casket first: it shimmered at the edge of his perception. As he moved past it, Yggdrasil reached for him. Branches twined around his arms and his legs. Leaves fluttered over his skin like inquisitive fingers. The Casket's song grew darker, as if it were jealous. Loki sensed the night skies clouding over, Jotunjaldr swallowed in darkness, a storm simmering. He gathered himself to rise to the surface of his mind, to reassure the Casket, but the tree dragged him deeper. White-hot pain lanced through his head from one temple to the other, intense and terribly familiar. Midgard. The scepter. Speaking to the Chitauri leader.

Instinctively, Loki fought to free himself. He knew better; he'd known better since he was a child, since his earliest lessons in magic, but he struggled, lashing out with his magic. The vines and branches squeezed him tighter, then abruptly, they released him. He tumbled onto rocky ground, and lay gasping on his back, under an endless hard sky pricked by alien stars. He knew this place. Dust crusted his eyes. His throat burned with thirst. Every part of him hurt. Every cell, every atom. He had walked until he could walk no longer, and then he had fallen.

The Chitauri found him. Brought him to the towers filled with gray light.

Loki lowered his gaze from the sky. Not much to see, except rocks and rubble and gray dust, and the straggling line of his footprints. A spider perched on his chest. It was white, and it was large enough that its legs spanned his chest. Which was strange, because he could not remember any sign of life in the wasteland. No birds, no insects. Not a single living thing. Only him.

He said to the spider, "Please."

His voice emerged cracked and ravaged. He blinked. He lay underneath a metal ceiling. Heavy restraints bit into his arms and legs. A Chitauri bent over him, holding a long probe in one hand. It cocked its head, and chittered, and the probe dipped toward the white spider. Except it was not a spider. It was his ribcage. He opened his mouth to scream, and he could not; he had already screamed himself voiceless.

He ripped himself free of the vision, and collapsed against the stone lip of the pool. The Casket rushed into his mind, seizing hold of him, keening dark and wild. Wind shrieked around the palace. He reached for the Casket, to soothe it as he would a panicked horse, but he couldn't touch it. His magic was gone, his strength exhausted. It would return, given time. Given rest. He could hear the voice of his tutor, Master Sigverk, chiding him:  _You must learn restraint, Prince Loki. Do not fall prey to passion. Magic is the realm of the mind, not the heart._

Loki pressed his fist hard against his mouth, until his teeth bit into his skin. Despite the water's warmth, he could not stop shivering. He dragged himself out of the pool, and stumbled to the doorway of his bed chamber, grabbing hold of the wall to steady himself, and closing his eyes. It was his memories of the Chitauri and Thanos that had poisoned his path to Yggdrasil. That was all. A dream of horror. Nothing more. 

When Loki lifted his head, he stood not in the doorway to his bed chamber, but instead, on that same desolate, rocky plain. Except... it was not the same. The night sky overhead was not alien. It was _his_ sky. The moons, strung in a shimmering curve like pearls, were Jotunheim's moons. The jagged stones were slick with water, and brackish puddles dotted the ground. The air hung breathless and still. 

A low, soft groan escaped Loki. In the darkest of his dreams, he had never dreamed of this: Jotunheim as it would have become, had he not given himself to the Casket. His realm, abandoned. Dead.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. The noise of the storm rose, the shriek of wind, the lash of ice and snow against the palace walls. When he opened his eyes once more, his bed chamber was as he had left it. His clothes in a tangle on the floor. The gigantic bed with its pile of furs. The smells of books, and the briny fume of the blue lichen glowing in the wall sconces.

Loki made his way across the room, his vision hazy and gray at the edges, pulled a long black pelt from one of the hooks on the wall, and wrapped himself in it. He sank down on the bed, into the furs. Again, he tried reaching for the Casket. Yggdrasil's branches scratched at his mind; the thought of that hungry, rotting darkness made him shudder again. He forced himself to focus on the Casket instead, concentrating fiercely, until a pounding pain filled his head.

 _Stop,_ he told the Casket. _Stop it._

It knew no language, but it obeyed. The wind fell. The Casket touched Loki's mind with its vast, icy power. Tentatively, as if unsure of its welcome. A low, heart-piercing croon rippled through Loki. It couldn't understand why he had broken the connection between them.

"I'm sorry," Loki murmured aloud. "I'm here now. It's all right. I'm here."

The Casket twined around him, its blue-white embrace like a blanket of snow.

***

Loki reached for the steaming cup of thraja on the table beside him. Sweet and spicy, it was brewed from a low-growing, hardy shrub native to the Vastlands. He was very fond of it. Still, there was nothing in Jotunheim to compare with Midgardian coffee. Nothing like a steaming hot espresso with milk and chocolate. Loki tried not to think about the fact that, had he succeeded in conquering Midgard, he might have had as much coffee as he liked.

He had slept only once since touching Yggdrasil; slipping into slumber while the storm died outside. He had not slept since. Though he needed less sleep than mortals, he had already gone a long while without it. At the edge of his vision, he could see a jagged crack splitting the table. The stack of books open beside him was speckled with mold, leather bindings eaten away, the pages a sodden lump. He could smell the mustiness of decaying paper. _Not real,_ he told himself. _None of this is real._

"Majesty."

Loki raised his head. The young ettin servant standing in the doorway to the library pressed his fist to his heart and bowed. Loki tried to remember the servant's name, and could not. 

"Has my brother arrived?" Loki said.

The ettin twitched in surprise. "Yes, sire. Prince Thor awaits your royal presence in the — "

"Ah, Loki. _Here_ you are," Thor said from the doorway.

Loki rose to his feet, feeling the floor dip slightly underneath him as he did so. He laid one hand on the tabletop to steady himself. The ettin servant shifted his weight anxiously, obviously concerned Loki would be angry with him for not keeping Thor in one place. But, Loki wasn't angry. He was exhausted, and he was starting to question his sanity, but neither of those things mattered at the moment.

"Thor," he said.

A grin broke across Thor's face. "You actually look pleased to see me, brother."

"Because I _am_ pleased to see you," Loki replied

He crossed the library, moving past the servant. Myrfir. That was the ettin's name. Thor strode down the short flight of steps from the doorway to meet Loki, and when Thor flung open his arms, Loki embraced him. It had been months since Thor's last visit, and Loki might have held onto his brother a bit too tightly, for too long, before he released Thor and stepped back. A crease appeared between Thor's brows.

"What brings you to Jotunheim?" Loki asked, before Thor could ask him what was wrong.

"I wished to surprise you," Thor replied. "Yet, you seem not at all surprised."

"I was extremely surprised half an hour ago, when the Bifrost opened."

He'd been frowning over the modestly-titled _Plant Life of the Realm,_ a thick treatise on the native flora of Jotunheim, written several thousand years ago by an ettin scientist named Hastifringhloi -- his life's work, according to the book's preface. The Casket had tugged sharply at the back of Loki's mind, demanding attention, and when Loki gave it, he sensed a tremendous vortex of force gathering at the border of his realm. The Bifrost. Loki had traveled it countless times, and he would know its power anywhere. The Casket remembered also, from centuries long past, before it had lain idle in Asgard's treasure vault, among the Allfather's other spoils of war.

Loki had touched the Casket in response, and told it, _Let the Bifrost enter_.

Myrfir bowed to Loki. "Sire. Shall I have lodgings prepared for Prince Thor?"

Loki raised his eyebrows at his brother.

"I would speak with you first," Thor said quietly.

Loki nodded. "Myrfir. Leave us."

"Yes, Majesty."

Myrfir bowed again, and left the library. Thor walked to the table where Loki had been sitting, picked up the top book on one of the stacks, and scowled at the title: _Census of the Realm, in the Second Century of the Exalted Rule of Queen Bjorbodda._ He set the book down again.

Loki said, "Has the Bifrost been been made whole, in so short a time?"

When last he had been in Asgard, the bridge was still a jagged-edged ruin. The Allfather had needed to summon a prodigious amount of dark magic to send Loki and the Casket to Jotunheim.

"Not yet," Thor replied. "But it is strong enough to bear a traveler or two, if it is not used very often. Otherwise, Tony Stark's device of many doors has sufficed admirably."

Following the Chitauri invasion of Manhattan, the Midgardians had discovered a Chitauri transport device in one of the downed leviathan ships. Despite not knowing anything about Chitauri technology, Tony Stark had figured out how to calibrate the transport device to reach from Midgard to its closest neighbor among the Nine Realms: Jotunheim. Thus far, Thor had been Stark's only test subject.

"Stark's ingenuity continues to surprise me," Loki said without sarcasm.

Thor picked up _Plant Life of the Realm_ , and opened it to one of Hastifringhloi's many painstaking sketches of lichen-covered rocks. "How fares Jotunheim?"

"My royal council and I are discussing opening our borders to trade."

Startled, Thor glanced up at him.

"It was your idea," Loki said. "You told me to consider changing how the other realms think of us."

"I remember that conversation, Loki. I told you to find yourself a wife."

Loki shrugged one shoulder. "Jotunheim lacks resources. And we have resources other realms lack. Granite. Iron. Silver. Gemstones. We have mines to rival those in Nidavellir. And I have been considering how best to introduce Jotunheim as a political power."

Thor's eyebrows rose.

"We were mighty once. We shall be again."

Thor set _Plant Life of the Realm_ on the table next to Loki's other books. "Then we ought to speak about... when I am king of Asgard..." He gave Loki an uncertain, hopeful look.

"You know I no longer bear you any ill will for that," Loki said. He waited until the tension in Thor's expression eased, before he added, "Very little ill will."

As Loki had expected, Thor chuckled. "We can achieve great things together, Loki. As brothers. And as kings."

"The Allfather expects no less, I am sure." Loki waved a hand, dismissing the subject. "But, politics and trade relations are not what brings you here, I am sure."

The humor left Thor's face. "Father is ill."

Loki was silent. The feelings rising inside him were not ones he welcomed, nor did he wish to dwell upon them.

Thor said, "I have come to ask you — "

Loki turned his back on Thor, and stepped around the table, laying his hand on the top of the chair where he had been sitting.

"Father's own magic cannot heal him," Thor continued, "and the healers can do nothing for him. Their magic is far less powerful than his. They know not what is wrong with him." Thor paused, and then sighed. "I am not asking you to be reconciled with father. Only to return with me."

Loki ran his hand along the carved back of the chair. He would have to return to Asgard eventually. He did not intend to return until Thor held the throne. "Has he asked for me?" 

Thor did not reply.

"I thought not."

"He has not asked for you _in my hearing_ ," Thor qualified.

Loki snorted, lifting his head to look at his brother. "Thor, oh Thor... forever the optimist."

"And you are a cynic."

 "Yet, even so, I am still unpleasantly surprised more often than I would prefer. What does that tell you?"

"Perhaps Father has not asked for you," Thor said, "because he knew asking was pointless."

Loki rolled his eyes.

"Is it pointless, Loki?"

"Yes. It is pointless. Too much has been said. And not said."

"Very well."

"You gave in rather easily."

"Would you prefer I tried harder?"

Loki smiled. "No."

Thor's blue eyes were eloquent with the longing to have his family together once more, as they had been in days of old. "You and I — we are not as we were on Midgard. Why should you and Father not make peace?"

"Because I never hated you." Loki reached out and flipped _Plant Life of the Realm_ shut. The cover closed over the pages with a dull thump. "As much as I wished to, I never could. In my heart, I knew I still loved you, and I knew I always would."

"That must have been annoying," Thor said with the gentle wryness that made it impossible for Loki to remain angry with him for very long.

Thor pulled out one of the chairs clustered around the table. It scraped across the stones, and sat down, propping one booted foot on the table. Loki sat down as well, in the chair next to him.

"I have another request." Thor flicked a stray lock of hair off his brow. "I was fairly certain you would not agree to return to Asgard. By comparison, my second request may not seem so bad."

"And what is your request, pray tell?"

"Jane Foster..." Thor began, and raised his eyebrows.

Loki nodded.

"She asked me to ask you if she might travel to Jotunheim."

Loki sat back in surprise. "For what possible purpose?"

"Her instruments have detected curious energies, all throughout the Nine Realms. But for some reason, they seem not to affect Jotunheim. She wishes to collect more data."

"She will bring her team with her," Loki said. "And Fury of SHIELD will insist upon sending soldiers." 

Thor's brow furrowed. "Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff, certainly. I have learned from Jane that Clint Barton has become a close companion to Erik Selvig ever since..." Thor raised his hand, then let it fall to the table.

"Since I enslaved them," Loki finished. "Well, now. Won't this be a merry party."

Thor looked startled. "You will permit Jane's team to travel here?"

"Certainly I will. And fear not, Thor. They may putter about and take their readings in peace. I am plotting no mischief for them. I am far too busy."

"I did not think you were plotting, brother." Thor sounded offended.

Loki raised an eyebrow.

"Truly," said Thor. "I know you have changed, just as I changed after my time on Midgard. You would not be here, if you hadn't." He tilted his chin to indicate he meant the palace library in particular, and not Jotunheim in general. "You would not be hunched over ancient tomes, and talking of trade alliances with other realms."

Loki shrugged, uncomfortable with his brother's earnest concern. Silence fell between them. Outside the large, arched doorway of the library, footsteps and the murmur of overlapping voices echoed in the vaulted corridor. The clicking. And the chittering. Loki traced his fingertips along a vein of grayish-green in the stone tabletop, where the crack had split it.

"Will you stay in Jotunheim?" Loki said. "Or will you return to Asgard right away?"

"I must go home, Loki."

"I thought as much."

"I will return, if I can," Thor said. "When I can."

***


	3. Chapter 3

When the Allfather first sent Loki to Jotunheim, his magic had delivered Loki to the great hall of Laufey's palace. Neither the Bifrost nor Tony Stark's device were so precise. For many thousands of years, the Bifrost had opened into Jotunheim on the broad plain of windswept rock at the mouth of the narrow valley. The Bifrost had burned runes into the rock, and worn a thin place in Jotunheim, allowing Tony Stark's transport device to open in the same location. The walk from Koninghöll through the valley was not a long one. Thor paused to look up at the gigantic carving in the rock wall that smiled down upon him and Loki. Thor grinned back at it, shook his head, then turned to Loki.

"Did you command your jotunar to build you this?"

"Of course not." Loki clenched his fists, then flexed his hands. "I cannot command them to destroy it, either."

"You could."

"I will not."

"You should not. I like it." Thor clapped Loki on the shoulder.  "I shall see you soon, brother. "

Loki nodded, and stepped away. "Farewell, Thor."

Thor looked as though he wanted to say something else, but he only lifted his head to the gray, cloud-scattered sky. "Heimdall," he said. "Open the Bifrost."

Overhead, the clouds twisted and swirled. The familiar vortex opened in the sky, unwinding from a pinpoint to a blaze. A column of rainbow light streamed to the ground, and surrounded Thor.

An instant later, the Bifrost enveloped Loki as well.

He had no magic powerful enough to prevent it. Instead, from long habit, his body adjusted to the sensation of streaking along at great speed alongside Thor; he caught his footing smoothly as he landed, and he stalked out of the roaring, whirling portal into the Bifrost's golden wheelhouse, where Heimdall stood holding his sword. Crackles of lightning flared and flickered around the guardian in his horned helmet.

Loki turned on Thor, drawing a breath to give voice to the rage and betrayal rising swiftly inside of him, but Thor looked utterly astonished. His expression hardened, his blue eyes narrowing.

"I was commanded to bring you both to Asgard," Heimdall explained calmly.

"I should have slain you when I had the chance," Loki snarled.

He heard the venom in his own voice, felt the sneer twisting his face, as though the past year in Jotunheim had never occurred. As though he had never left Asgard. What a fool he had been, to think he had left the past behind him.

"Thank you, Heimdall," came his mother's cool voice from the  doorway of the wheelhouse.

Loki stiffened. Queen Frigga walked gracefully into the room, her skirts swirling around her legs. Heimdall inclined his head to Frigga with grave deference. Inside Loki's mind, the thread of awareness connecting him to Jotunheim trembled with the Casket's agitation.

 _I am in no danger,_ he shared with it. But, it tugged at him, urging him home to Jotunheim. It felt Loki's anger, and Loki sensed the skies darkening over his realm.

 _ _Be at peace_ , _he told the Casket more firmly. _I will return soon._

Frigga's stride faltered when she caught sight of her younger son made monstrous, horned and blue-skinned, his eyes deep crimson. Her face betrayed a flicker of surprise, but no revulsion. She paused to brush her hand over Thor's arm, and then she walked to where Loki stood. When she smiled and lifted her hand in welcome, Loki drew back as if she were the monster, not he.

"I knew you would be angry," she said. "I also knew you would not come, given the choice."

"Command Heimdall to send me home."

Frigga raised an eyebrow. "You've been in Jotunheim a long while, Loki. You've forgotten I am queen of Asgard, and you have no right to gainsay my wishes."

"And _you_ have forgotten, _my queen_ , that the Bifrost is not the only path out of Asgard." He flicked his eyes at Heimdall, glaring at the tall man in the golden armor. "I have many ways to escape Heimdall's sight."

"Your secret paths depend upon the Bifrost's power to reach Yggdrasil," Frigga said. "Is that not so, Loki?"

Loki pressed his lips together. In just the few minutes they had been standing and speaking together, he sensed that the Bifrost had ebbed so low, it could not have even opened its vortex.

"Let us not quarrel." Thor strode swiftly to where Frigga stood with Loki. "What's done is done."

"You're right, Thor," Loki replied. "I'm sure absolutely no one in Asgard will object to the presence of a Frost Giant inside the Allfather's palace."

Thor frowned, but it wasn't the disapproving frown Loki expected. His brother looked troubled, instead. Their mother walked toward the door of the wheelhouse. Thor followed. Loki stood where he was for a brief moment, and then he did likewise. His only other alternative was to sulk in the wheelhouse, with Heimdall, until the Bifrost regained enough power to carry him home.

Thor fell into step with Frigga on her right side, and Loki joined her on her left, exactly as they always had. The guards stood in the hallway  with blank faces, their gazes respectfully focusing on the floor, as Frigga passed them, walking between Thor and Loki. 

When the hallway widened into an intersection, Frigga tucked her hand through the crook of Loki's arm. "Thor, will you leave us, please? I wish to speak to your brother alone."

"Of course, mother." Thor fixed Loki with a pointed look.

Loki shot his brother a scowl in return, and Frigga led Loki away from him.

"Loki, you are so eager to return to Jotunheim?" she said.

"Jotunheim is my home," Loki replied. "The jotunar are my people. Do you not realize you've abducted their king?"

"Don't fret, Loki."

"I am not _fretting_."

Frigga fluttered her free hand in a careless gesture. "I asked Heimdall to send a raven to your Princess Brisenndyr of Clan Brinjolf. I wrote her a letter myself, explaining that I required you here. That should suffice, should it not?"

"I suppose it must."

"Did you know she is the one who petitioned us for aid, a year ago? Lovely girl. Charming manners."

Loki raised his eyebrows. There was no point in asking his mother for clarification; he knew they were speaking of the same Princess Brisenndyr.

Frigga added, "Have you given much thought to taking a wife?"

Loki drew back, though Frigga kept hold of his arm. " _This_ is why you have brought me to Asgard?"

"No," she replied. "You know precisely why I've summoned you, Loki. But, it is high time you were married. You and Thor both."

"I have considered it," Loki said curtly.

"Good."

"I may be a creature out of nightmares, but I am also a king."

"Loki," his mother said reproachfully.

"An extremely rich king. With a realm full of silver and jewels. That ought to make me a great favorite among the young ladies."

"There was a time you thought of marrying for love."

Loki didn't bother to answer. His mother led him to her favorite sitting room. It was small, relative to the other rooms in the palace. An open colonnade led to a balcony overlooking one of the palace gardens, and a light breeze threaded through the sitting room, wafting the scents of a thousand flowers. One of Frigga's handmaidens was arranging refreshments on a table near the colonnade: a tray of food, and a long-throated golden pitcher. Loki recognized the handmaiden, with her round face and her wheat-colored braids, but he had never bothered to learn her name. As he walked into the room, she looked up, and all the color fled her face.

"Aud," said Frigga, "You may leave us."

Aud bobbed a curtsy, and scurried past Loki, to the door.

Loki gestured behind him, in the direction Aud had fled. "As you can see, I do not belong here anymore."

"You owe a duty to your father," Frigga said.

"He stole me. I owe him nothing."

Frigga crossed the room to sit down in one of the chairs beside the table. "He found you abandoned. Had he not brought you to Asgard, you would have frozen to death in that temple."

"Or, I might have been taken in by my own people, and raised by them." And what might he have been then? Loki wondered about it often.

"Odin and I raised you as our own, and our magic gave you the powers of a god. We love you very much." She gestured to the chair on the other side of the table. "Loki. Sit, please."

He struggled to stay angry with her, but he couldn't. She was his mother. "Tell me then, because I do not understand..."

"Anything," Frigga leaned forward in her chair, and held out her hands to him. "Please. Ask me."

Reluctantly, Loki approached her, his boots making no sound on the thick cream-colored carpet. He was not surprised to see that, among the dainties carefully arranged on a polished platter of dark wood, there were quite a few of the currant cakes that were his favorite. But, he did not sit down.

"The Allfather intended Thor to be king of Asgard, and me to be king of Jotunheim," he said. "And I suppose, since Thor and I were raised as brothers, Odin's plan was to put Jotunheim safely in Asgard's pocket."

"His hope was to mend the past," Frigga replied. "For Asgard and Jotunheim to know lasting peace. We hoped that since you were..." She glanced away from Loki, as if deciding how she wanted to phrase what she intended to say next. "Since you were the son of King Laufey, and a son of the Dokkalf — "

"Odin knew of the alfin?"

"Not until long after he brought you to Asgard," Frigga replied. "The alfin were not as numerous then, nor as strong. They had no interest in the war between Asgard and Laufey's armies, and they kept themselves well hidden. When Odin found you, he knew only that you were not a full jotun, and he believed that was why you had been left to die." She smoothed one hand across her skirts. "But, these are questions you should be asking Odin, not me."

Loki walked over to the colonnade. During his year spent in Jotunheim, he had not discovered not a single shred of information about the dokkalf woman who had borne him. He had asked Breyrkekolf if there were records kept, but Breyrkekolf had shaken his head. Dokkalf slaves who found themselves pregnant by their ettin masters had fled when they could, and hidden, or killed themselves, when they could not. Infants were smuggled away to the temples and other abandoned places, where their cries would not betray them. Many died in the cold before the alfin could steal them away to the safety of the Vastlands.

Breyrkekolf had suggested, shyly, that his own  clan would be proud to claim Loki, but Loki declined. He could not show that much favor to Clan Brinjolf. Not with the realm still so unsettled.

From his vantage overlooking the garden, Loki spied a woman among the trees. All he could see of her was the graceful line of her back, her dark hair, and her gown, which was twilight blue.

"Odin intended to tell you everything," Frigga said. "He never felt you were ready."

Loki turned to face to his mother.

Frigga added, "He never felt Thor was truly ready to rule Asgard, either. Not until he returned from his exile on Midgard."

"Ah," Loki said. "Not until he was properly humbled."

"Not until he understood what it meant to rule wisely and well," Frigga replied with asperity. " _Truly_ understood." She lifted a hand toward Loki. "The way you now understand. We spoiled you. Both of you. Out of love, we allowed you to grow heedless and arrogant, and unfit to rule."

Loki was silent. There was not much he could say to that. Odin had sent him to Jotunheim to learn a lesson, and learn it he had. But, he had not yet asked the question he most wished to ask — the question he most feared the answer to.

"If you love me as much as you claim," he said, "why do you allow the people of Asgard to frighten their children with tales of the Frost Giants?"

"You never heard those tales from us."

"That makes no difference."

Frigga rose to her feet, and paced a few steps, clasping her hands together. "The stories of the Frost Giants are only that. Stories. Your father — "

"He is not my father," Loki snapped.

"We discussed it, he and I, after he brought you home. He wanted to issue a royal decree. To forbid his subjects from telling those tales. To protect you. I convinced him not to."

Loki watched her lift the golden pitcher and pour two glasses of deep pink Vanir wine.

"Why?" he said finally.

Frigga set the pitcher down. "Because there is no better way to ensure that something flourishes, than to forbid it. I felt it was wiser to allow the tales of Frost Giants to remain as they were. Merely tales. And then..." She glanced up and smiled sadly. "When you were ready, you would show us — all of Asgard — the truth of what it meant to be jotun."

Loki shifted his attention to the carpet, to the rough hide of his boots, dark against the delicate patterns of flowers and vines. In his peripheral vision, he saw Frigga pick up the two glasses of wine and walk across the room to him.

"I can plan and scheme all I like," she said. "Yet more often than not, those schemes don't unfold in the way I intend." She held out one of the wine glasses to him. "I am sorry, Loki."

He took the wineglass from her. He was uncomfortable in this pleasant room, in his fur-lined coat. A rivulet of sweat ran down his spine.

"Neither of us intended for you to find out the way you did," Frigga said. "It was unforgivable. I know how you must have — "

Loki thrust the glass at her. Wine slopped over the rim, over her fingers, and over the sleeve of her gown, darkening the golden fabric. He walked out of the room.

Frigga did not try to stop him, nor did she call his name. He had convinced himself that everyone in Asgard had been happy to be rid of him, Odin and Frigga included. Their monstrous child, stolen away in a moment of foolish tender-heartedness. A decision they'd regretted ever after. He was still angry at not being told his origins, at finding out the way he had found out, and angry at himself, since it was own fault. He had shown Laufey's soldiers the way into Asgard.

He had no thought of a destination other than away from his mother, and he paid little heed to where his steps led him. He found a wide, curving staircase, and he went down it. At the bottom, he emerged, blinking in bright sunshine, and cursed under his breath. He'd made nearly a full circle, arriving in the courtyard beneath his mother's sitting room. He had walked down those steps a hundred times before. He'd known exactly where they led.

He glanced up at the balcony. It was empty and, unless he ventured into the garden, no one in the sitting room would be able to see him.

When he looked back at the garden, it was dead. Not like his bed chamber in his palace. Some catastrophe had blighted and blackened the garden, and it had been left to fall into ruin. A sifting of ash and dust covered the charred skeletons of the trees, and spiders had spun their webs over everything. The Casket's unease shivered through Loki, echoing his own. His madness had followed him here.

The touch of a hand on his arm startled him. He pivoted, and found himself face to face with the last person he expected to see anywhere, ever again: the lady in blue.

"Sigyn," he said.

She took a startled step back, eyes widening. She was entitled to stare, since he could not help staring at her, drinking her in. She was even more lovely than his memory had painted her. No longer was she the sweet-faced girl he had tossed aside. Her beauty was harder-edged, sadder, wiser. Darker. And her hair. Her _hair_. When he had known her in times past, it had been long. Bound up and braided, twined with ribbons and studded with jeweled pins. He had idly fantasized about plucking each pin and ribbon from it, undoing each braid, and sinking his hands into the dark, heavy masses of it. Now her hair was almost as short as Brisenndyr's; it fell to her jawline in ringlets.

The Casket stirred with curiosity. It recognized Sigyn, perhaps from Loki's memories, perhaps from the illusion of her he had cast. It reached for her, and Loki nudged it aside, like he would a large, overly-friendly dog.

"Forgive me, Prince Loki --" Her full mouth twisted in a bitter smile entirely unlike the Sigyn he remembered. "But, no. I must address you as 'Your Majesty,' now, mustn't I?"

"Whichever you prefer," Loki murmured. He was shaken to his bones. He could not quite convince himself she was real. Not after the devastation he had just seen in the garden. But, the garden was once more as it had been, green and fragrant, the sky above it flawlessly blue, save for a flock of picturesque clouds drifting in the distance.

"I did not mean to startle you." Sigyn's expression softened slightly, and she frowned up at him. "I only... are you unwell?"

"It is nothing," Loki said. "I've grown accustomed to the cold of Jotunheim, that is all."

"Then I am sorry for intruding. By your leave, Majesty." She dropped him a graceful curtsy.

"Sigyn," Loki said again. "What are you doing here?"

Her mouth crimped at the corners, turning down. "Your mother summoned me."

 "Ah," Loki said. "She always did like you."

"I suppose my provincial manners amuse her." Sigyn hesitated, then she added, "I had no idea you were returning to Asgard."

"Neither did I," Loki said dryly.

"Had I known..." She folded her hands tightly in front of her. "Well, I could not have refused Queen Frigga, in any case."

"No," Loki said. "But, tell me. Your father — he is well?"

"Quite well."

"And your mother and brothers?"

"All are well," she replied, irritation creeping into her voice. Or was it sarcasm? "Thank you for your concern."

Loki lifted a hand, gesturing at her. "I ask because you've cut off your hair, Sigyn. Is that not a remembrance for the dead, in Vanaheim?"

Sigyn's expression of cool politeness didn't waver. "An ancient mourning custom, not often honored nowadays, except on the outlying worlds. I'm surprised you have heard of it." She didn't give Loki a chance to respond, but added, "I will not disturb you further. Good day."

With a flick of her skirts, she walked away from him — a breathtakingly rude gesture, given Loki's rank. The Sigyn he had known would never have done that. He didn't try to follow her. But, the Casket rippled and reached out for her again.

***


	4. Chapter 4

The Allfather wore every one of his many centuries in the creases of his face. Lying in his massive golden bed, he looked small and shrunken. Surely he could not have grown so old in only a year.

Loki had expected to feel angry at this moment: the first moment he set eyes upon Odin, since Odin exiled him to Jotunheim. Instead, he felt pity, and a strange dread he could not put a name to. It was not fear of Odin, nor was it fear of the memories in this room, where he had slain Laufey. It was something else, something that floated like smoke just outside his perception. Loki had been standing wordless in the doorway for so long, that Thor opened his mouth to speak. Frigga lifted her hand to stop him.

"I have done my duty," Loki said, finally. "I have come and seen him, as you asked."

Frigga said, "None of the healers know what ails him. He has slept for months, and it has done him no good. That is why I summoned you and Thor home. Soon he will wake from the Odinsleep, and I know he will wish to speak with you one last time, before he takes the Sleep of the Ancestors."

"Brother," Thor said quietly. "Please."

Loki glanced at him, then back at Frigga. "Fine. But I want something in exchange."

Frigga's eyes narrowed. "This is not something I care to haggle about."

"I could have left Asgard last night," Loki replied. "The Bifrost has regained enough power to open a path to Yggdrasil, and from there I could have returned to Jotunheim. Yet I am still here."

Thor said nothing, but his frown deepened as Loki added,

"I can veil my entire realm, from Heimdall's sight. The Bifrost cannot open into Jotunheim unless I permit it." That was a bluff; he very much doubted the Casket could hold fast against the Bifrost, and he did not want to discover what might happen to Jotunheim, if it tried.  But Frigga did not press him.

"What is it you wish, Loki?" she said.

"Tell Sigyn she can go home."

Thor winced. Frigga straightened, her shoulders drawing back.

"She cannot not leave without your permission," Loki said. "Tell Heimdall to open the Bifrost for her. Now. This morning. It has enough power to carry her to Hjallsmuli."

"But Loki," Thor said, "If the Bifrost takes Sigyn to Vanaheim, then you cannot return to Jotunheim until it gains power once more."

"I'm aware of that," Loki said.

***

Lightning surged and spiked around Heimdall, racing up the hilt of his sword, as power gathered in the wheelhouse, and the vortex of the Bifrost began to form. Sigyn stood next to Frigga, pointedly not looking at Loki. Sigyn was not wearing blue this morning, but a deep, golden pink, like the last glow of sunset in an evening sky. She was so beautiful, his heart ached. 

He didn't try to speak to her, even to bid her farewell. Once she left Asgard for Vanaheim, Frigga would not summon her to the palace again. For all his mother's plots and plans, she was kind-hearted. And Loki would not travel to Hjallsmuli, to seek Sigyn out. He would leave her alone. He owed her that much, at least.

The Bifrost roared open in a blaze of rainbow light. Sigyn murmured something to Frigga, who clasped Sigyn's hands in her own.

"Good journey, Sigyn," Thor said to her.

She smiled at him, and then she glanced over her shoulder at Loki. A last look from her was more than Loki had expected, and certainly more than he deserved. Sigyn stepped into the Bifrost, and it swept her away, toward Vanaheim.

A wash of darkness roared out of the vortex, swelling through the wheelhouse. Loki froze, not sure if what he was seeing was another strange hallucination. Behind him, Heimdall cried out. Loki spun around. Heimdall's golden eyes were wide with horror. Black-edged lightning crackled around him, and he staggered, dropping to one knee, as if borne down by an insupportable weight.

"This cannot be," he gasped.

Both Thor and Frigga rushed to aid Heimdall. They could not see it, Loki realized. They could not feel the darkness. The wrongness.

Heimdall's eyes met Loki's.

"What's happened?" Loki demanded.

"Hjallsmuli. It's gone."

Blackness boiled up the blade of Heimdall's sword, and a shock of horror washed over Loki. _Sigyn,_ he thought.

"Then why have you opened the Bifrost?" Frigga demanded.

"It was _there_ ," Heimdall insisted. "I saw Hjallsmuli, and then I could see it no more. "

"How can this be?" Thor said. "Heimdall, you see everything."

"I know not. Perhaps an echo from the past, but —"

Loki sprinted for the Bifrost, plunging into the clouds of blackness billowing from the vortex.

Frigga screamed.

"Loki!" Thor roared. "No!"

Sigyn might be dead already. The Bifrost might have spilled her into the endless void where Loki had fallen; she might be lost to him forever. Thor was two steps away, stretching out a hand to catch Loki, to pull him back. Amid the darkness consuming the wheelhouse, Thor glowed as though lit from within.

"Thor," Loki said, "I will find her. You must find us."

"I will, brother. I swear it," Thor replied, and let go of him.

Loki stepped into the Bifrost. Clouds of churning black twisted through its ribbons of light. He had a moment to regret his impulsive decision, and another moment to know he would not have changed his mind. With a blaze and roar, the Bifrost spat him out. He landed on charred, barren ground, hard enough to send up a cloud of ash and dust from his impact.

The Bifrost writhed like a snake caught by the tail, spitting arcs of multicolored lightning before it sputtered and died. Loki leapt to his feet. A swift look around did not prove helpful. He had no idea whether the Bifrost had brought him to Hjallsmuli, to some other world of Vanaheim, or to someplace else entirely. The sky was an unbroken gray, but a faint glow emanated from the trees, the rocks and the ground. It was not like the flat and sourceless light of the Chitauri homeworld. This light had a flickering life of its own, casting shadows that trembled and writhed. A chilly wind stirred the ash into restless zephyrs, and rattled the branches of the dead trees. The air smelled of smoke and corruption.

He did not see Sigyn. His first thought was to call her name, but he did not. No telling what the sound of his voice might attract. Instead, he sought his connection to the Casket. Perhaps it would be able to guide him to her. He touched nothing. There was nothing inside him, except himself. He was alone.

Panic clawed up his ribcage. He forced it down. It did not matter. He had spent most of his life alone, and gotten along well enough. All he needed to do was to find her, then find a thin place in this world, where he could open a path to Yggdrasil. He did not need the Casket for that.

 _If you're even still within the Nine Realms,_ a voice in his mind whispered.

He pushed the thought away. Until he could be certain, it would not do for him to start down that path. He looked around again, this time more carefully, seeking any small clue Sigyn had passed this way. Loki's luck was not usually good, but for once, fortune smiled on him. His alfin clothing had been made for him; these were not garments he had created by magic. And Sigyn had touched the sleeve of his coat yesterday in the garden. He could find her, if he gathered his magic and cast it like a net.

In the worlds beyond the Bifrost, after he had fallen, his magic had turned on him each time he tried to use it. The simplest of spells had bitten into his mind, twisting horribly. Bracing himself, he brushed his hand over the fabric of his coat sleeve. Sensations rose in his mind's eye, lifted from the coat like a handful of fallen leaves. His magic was casting strong and true. He was not as far from home as he had feared. He sensed the alfin weaver who had made his coat: Víkunnr was old, but he was still the finest weaver and dyer of drahagi wool in Clan Kyrkrida. Víkunnr had been proud to make a coat for the king. His daughter had done the embroidery. Óneisi had not noticed her two missed stitches on the coat's left sleeve until she laid the coat out for Breyrkekolf to inspect. Breyrkekolf hadn't noticed her mistake at all. A ghost of Sigyn lingered, caught in the weave of the wool. He caught all of these impressions, cupping his hand around them. It was not much to craft a spell from. He would have to choose a direction, and he would only get one chance. Sigyn, in her pink gown and her soft leather slippers... which direction would she travel?

Directly in front of Loki stood a copse of trees, their bark glossy and dark gray as if it had rained recently. Leaves hung crinkled and dead from their branches, and the ground rose steep and rocky. To his left, the trees thinned to a flat plain of ash and scrubby, dead prickles of grass. Easier traveling, but Sigyn was not stupid. She would look for shelter, for concealment, for food and water, if it came to that.

He cast his magic toward the trees. The spell unfurled in a gossamer net of gold and green. It flickered in the wind-swirled ash, revealing a single footprint that vanished instantly. 

Loki stepped into the copse of trees, pushing aside tree limbs that snapped and splintered as he passed. He nearly missed it in the strange, dim light: a scrap of pink fabric caught on a thorn. He reached for it, brambles raking over his coat, and tugged it loose with a soft exclamation of triumph. It brimmed with her, like a goblet overflowing with sweet mead. She had passed this way only minutes before his arrival. Evidently, she hadn't expected anyone to come after her.

A sharp cry came from deeper within the trees. It might have been a bird. He knew it wasn't. The crunch of breaking branches followed, then a deep and guttural snarl. Loki plunged through the trees and brambles. The terrain sloped toward a sluggish, narrow slick of oily grayish-yellow. Crouched on the bank of the creek were creatures that Loki took at first for a pack of black wolves. Only their shadows were visible deep among the trees. Sigyn stood on the far side of the creek. Slime caked the skirts of her gown nearly up to her knees. She cocked back her arm, and hurled a stone at the wolf nearest the creek edge. The stone struck the wolf squarely in one of its glaring yellow eyes. It recoiled with a yelp of pain, revealing it was not a wolf at all, but one part of a far larger creature. Loki glimpsed the heads of several other wolves amid a flurry of wings and slithering tentacles and chitinous legs that scrabbled against the trees, shredding their bark.

Without he Casket, he could not call the ice, but he still had his own magic. He thrust out both hands and flung a blizzard of throwing daggers at the thing. The creature turned on him with a shriek as the daggers struck it, vanishing into its darkness. It reared up, its underbelly a patchwork of scales and fur and flesh. In the cracks between, black hands grasped and flailed, entombed alive inside of it. Loki rushed the creature; he had no time to plan an attack. He leapt at it, calling more daggers to his hands. It skittered away from him. It had no taste for prey that fought back. Loki dove in amid claws and lashing tentacles, striking deep into its belly. It screamed a second time, and black smoke burst from its wound, stinking of corruption and fire. Loki turned his head involuntarily, narrowing his eyes, as the creature burst apart into nothing.

Sigyn stood staring at him from across the narrow creek, her hands tightly clenching her skirts.

"Loki?" Her voice was small and shocked.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

Lifting her skirts, she picked her way down the bank to the ochrous creek. Loki came to meet her and, as she reached the near side, he held out his hand. Sigyn hesitated, then she accepted his help and let him hand her up the far bank, her gown dragging through the mud. She was shivering. Their surroundings weren't cold, at least not compared to the icy climate he'd grown accustomed to. But, Sigyn's pink gown was light silk, meant for the warm summer of Hjallsmuli.

Loki brushed ash and dead flies off his coat, undid the bone fastenings down the front, and removed it. "Here. You're cold."

He draped the long coat over her shoulders. Obediently, she put her arms through the sleeves, and pushed back their embroidered cuffs.

"We won't be here long," he told her. "I need only find a gateway into Yggdrasil, and I can..."

Tears shimmered on Sigyn's lashes. He had always known exactly what to say to her, what clever words might make her smile, or cajole her into kissing him, and now he could think of nothing to halt her tears before they began to fall.

"We must leave this place," he said. "That creature may return. Or others may come."

She drew a deep breath, and wiped her hands under her eyes. "Of course. Forgive me."

He frowned. "There's nothing to forgive."

They set off through the trees, Loki slowing his stride so Sigyn could walk apace with him, or close behind when he forced his way through the brambles and the close-growing saplings. He followed his sense of the thin place where he could open a path to Yggdrasil. Yet, the strangeness of this world played tricks with his perception. Sometimes the gateway seemed impossibly far away, and moments later it flickered tantalizingly close.

Gusts of wind rattled through the dead leaves and branches, and the light shifted ceaselessly, lending the long shadows an illusion of life. It never waned, nor did it brighten, though they had been walking for hours. The strange smoke beast was the only creature they encountered. 

"Is this Hjallsmuli?" Sigyn said.

It had been so long since she'd spoken, that her quiet voice startled him.

"I don't know," he said.

"Don't lie to me, Loki."

Her face was pale and taut, her hands clenched in his coat cuffs. Mud and bits of leaves clung to her trailing, wet skirts.

"I know not where we are," he said. "We may not even be in Vanaheim."

"Once we reach Yggdrasil. Then you will know."

Loki nodded. He had no idea how to offer her comfort. Thor gave of himself with effortless ease, but Loki was not his brother. He held out his hand to her. Sigyn looked away from him, her fingers curling into the fur cuffs of his coat sleeves; Loki let his hand fall. Though she hadn't voiced any complaint, it was on the tip of his tongue to suggest they rest for a while. Then he glanced behind her. The trees fell away into darkness, swallowed by a wall of featureless black. Loki's expression must have betrayed him, because Sigyn turned to look. She said nothing and, other than a low sigh, she reacted not at all. Only turned and kept walking.

Each time Loki glanced back, the shadows among the trees appeared no closer, and no farther away. But the gateway to Yggdrasil drew closer and, soon enough, they reached it: a gigantic, gnarled tree, hundreds, if not thousands of years old. Far larger than the other trees in the forest, it had grown up into the side of a hill, its thick, warty roots surrounding the dark mouth of a cave.

"Oh," Sigyn said.

He was not sure if it was the tree itself that had caught her attention, or if she now sensed the thin place leading to Yggdrasil. When they had been betrothed, she'd been quick to learn the simple spells he had taught her. 

They hurried across the leaf-littered ground and, in his mind's eye, Loki built the spellwork to open the gateway. He and Sigyn were mere steps from the gateway when shadows seeped from the ground and glided out of the trees, taking the shapes of men and women, of children and animals. He brushed aside the half-formed spell. He could not work something so complex and fight at the same time.

The shadows moved closer, stretching out their hands to him and Sigyn, blocking the path to the tree. Loki stepped in front of Sigyn.

"They're behind us," she said.

Daggers leapt to Loki's hands once more. As the shadows converged, he heard them weeping, groaning, crying out -- but faintly, as if the sounds were traveling from a great distance. Arms stretched out, hands reached for him. He slashed at the closest shadow with his dagger. The blade cut through its arm like smoke and the contact seared up Loki's arm. Loki snatched back. His flesh stung, but the sleeve of his shirt was unmarked. The shadow cracked, revealing ribbons of flame within its blackness. Then it opened wide eyes and a gaping mouth, burning orange-white. It reached for him again. He brought up the knife to parry, though he knew it would do no good. The shadows were upon them, surrounding them, hands touching, and everywhere they touched, they burned. Loki felt Sigyn's shoulder bump against his back. She cried out, as one of the things touched her. A shadow-woman trailed her hand down Loki's cheek.

Sigyn whispered an incantation: a cantrip to light a candle. Bright golden light bloomed in Loki's peripheral vision. She thrust both hands at the shadows, releasing a small ball of flame. They recoiled, their sobs turning to screams of fear.

Loki vanished his daggers, and cast a similar incantation, hurling a fireball at the shadows. The dry leaves scattering the ground burst alight, and flames raced toward the trees. The shadows shrank back.

"Cast again," he told Sigyn. "Keep them away from the tree."

She spoke the spell a second time. Loki rebuilt the gateway spell, an intricate web of light rising his his mind's eye. He flung the spell at the tree. The passage to Yggdrasil burst open, much more easily than he'd expected. The fabric of this world was rotted and crumbling. Sigyn cast her candle spell third time, flame leaping from her fingertips. Loki looped an arm around her waist, pulled her between the roots of the ancient tree, and into the cave. They tumbled through the gateway. He prayed he was not dragging her into the Yggdrasil he had encountered when last he had tried to reach it. Loki twisted in mid-fall to bring her on top of him, and landed on a carpet of soft moss. Sigyn landed half on top of him. The smell of green and growing things rose all around, and narrow shafts of sunlight pierced the leaves. Sigyn shifted against his hip, and belatedly, Loki realized his arms were still clasped tight around her. He let her go; he knew he was cold to the touch. Sigyn sat up quickly, moving away from him, and brushing the ash and dirt off her ruined skirts.

Above them gaped the entrance to the cave. Loki cast a second spell, a simpler one, closing the passage. Wood rustled and creaked, and leaves fluttered down on him and Sigyn, as the tree roots sealed tightly over the the cave. It was dark where they had landed, but it was a warm, green darkness.

Loki rose to his feet, his muscles stiff, and skin tight and painful everywhere the the shadow-things had touched him. When he unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt and pushed back the sleeve, his flesh was unmarked. He lifted his head, intending to ask Sigyn if she had suffered any harm. She was staring at his blue skin, at the ridges running up his arm. He pulled his sleeve down.

"What made you think of it?" he said. "The candle spell."

"The shadow people were burned. I though fire might frighten them."

He had magic enough that he would have escaped them, but that solution had not occurred to him. "My thanks, Sigyn. I shall find out where we are."

Reaching up, he touched the roots of the tree that had twined shut over the gateway. He closed his eyes to concentrate.

"Loki," she said.

He opened his eyes. Sigyn looked very small sitting on the mossy ground, swathed in his dark, fur-collard coat, with the gnarled mass of Yggdrasil's roots rising behind her.

"Thank you," she said. "For coming to find me."

"Of course," he said. 

She looked as though she wished to say something else, but she didn't. Again, he closed his eyes, and this time, she didn't interrupt. The icy thread of the Casket slipped into his mind. It touched him tentatively, as if to make certain he was uninjured.

 _I am well,_ he told it. _And glad to find you again._

The Casket shifted, stretching toward Sigyn; Loki sensed its question: _Is she also well?_ He feared she was not.

It coiled into the back of his mind, there it settled. He focused on Yggdrasil, sinking his awareness into the wood beneath his hand. The world at the other side of the closed gateway offered its name to Loki. _Kambrekk._ One of the worlds of Vanaheim.

He dropped his hand, frowning.

"It is not Hjallsmuli," he told Sigyn.

Her shoulders sagged in relief.

"Sigyn…" He hated himself. But, he could not keep the truth from her. It would be far crueler. "It is Kambrekk."

She turned pale. Kambrekk lay nearer to Asgard than Hjallsmuli.

"The Bifrost may have brought us to the closest world of Vanaheim it could," he said.

"You are saying Hjallsmuli might have... fared worse."

Loki thought of what Heimdall had said: _I saw Hjallsmuli, and then I could see it no more._

"Perhaps," he said. 

Earlier, he had so dreaded the idea that she would start to cry, and now he wished she would. Better that than this frozen composure, this near-silent acceptance.

"We will go and see for ourselves," he said.

"You needn't waste the time. If you would bring me back to Asgard, I would be very grateful."

"Hjallsmuli is where Thor will seek us," Loki replied. "Even if Hjallsmuli is as bad as Kambrekk, or worse, there may be something we..." He stopped, recalling his conversation with Thor.

"What is it?" Sigyn said.

"My brother came to Jotunheim, shortly before we were both summoned to Asgard." Loki walked to the mossy hillock, and sat down a little way from Sigyn. The ground sank under his tired, aching body, and he wasn't quite able to repress a sigh. "Thor told me a team of Midgardian scientists wished to travel to Jotunheim, to study strange energies they'd detect throughout the realms." He lifted his hand. "This may be what their instruments detected."

"That means Jotunheim is in danger as well. Some of its worlds may have become like Kambrekk."

Loki shook his head. "Not yet."

"How can you be so certain?"

He ran his hand through the soft moss, and ripped a bit of it out of the ground, tearing it between his fingers. "You have been courteous enough not to scream and run away from me. I will not frighten you further."

"You don't frighten me because you're jotun," Sigyn said tartly.

Loki smiled tightly. "Yet I do frighten you."

"I know of the devastation you unleashed upon Jotunheim. All of Asgard and Vanaheim know of your conquest of Midgard. I can understand you wanting to destroy Jotunheim, after discovering you were Laufey's son and not the Allfather's, but I do not understand —"

"I see my mother has saved me the trouble of acquainting you with recent events."

"She did me the courtesy of explaining to me why you let everyone believe you had taken your own life."

Loki looked away from her. He was the reason she had cut off her hair. How stupid he had been not to realize it before now.

"I spent many hours regretting that I'd been too proud to speak to you at your brother's coronation," Sigyn added. "That should please you."

Loki had likewise been too proud to speak to her, and he had likewise come to regret it.

"I did not do what I did out of spite," he said.  Nor had he told himself everyone would love him better for having lost him. At that moment on the broken Bifrost, the only thing he had wanted was to die.

Sigyn rose to her feet, gathering her dirty skirts and shaking them out. "Just a bit of fun, then?"

Loki stood up as well. He would have preferred to rest a little while longer, but he brushed bits of moss and leaves off his black trousers. "Hjallsmuli is not far from here."

The paths of Yggdrasil were difficult to travel. There were no smooth footways, but instead lines of magic radiating among the great tree's tangled roots. Loki had learned to follow the paths over many years of trial and error. True, there were wide swaths where the roots and the low-hanging branches parted to carpets of deep, emerald green moss, and grass dotted with wildflowers. But, just as often, he and Sigyn traveled across the roots of the tree itself, over the ancient bark, between overhanging shelves of mushrooms clinging to the trunk. Green-tinted sunlight filtered down through the leaves. They were much safer here than they had been in Kambrekk, but there were still animals living in the great tree. Birds and insects called from branches overhead, and once, Loki saw a white hart go bounding away into the dense green shadows. He knew from past travels that there were wolves here, and serpents. If one ventured downward toward Dokkalfheim and Helheim, there lived creatures far stranger and far more dangerous.

Loki climbed down a huge, twisting root, his boots finding finding footholds in the knotholes and the cracks, until he could leap to the grassy bank below. He turned, looking back up to Sigyn, and lifted his arms, raising his eyebrows enquiringly.

She shook her head. "I can make my way."

"Very well," he said.

But he stayed close, as she picked her way down to him. When she was close enough, he held up one hand again. She took it, and then she jumped lightly down, landing beside him. A bright line of magic in the grain of the tree bark pointed the way to Hjallsmuli.

"It's not much farther," Loki said.

"You never told me how you are so certain none of Jotunheim's worlds have been destroyed."

"The Casket of Ancient Winters. We are linked, it and I. I am Jotunheim. And Jotunheim is me."

Sigyn stopped walking, and drew back from him.

"I thought my being jotun didn't frighten you," he said.

"If Jotunheim is destroyed like Kambrekk, then this... whatever this is... will it destroy you as well?"

"I suppose so."

Frowning, Sigyn studied his face. "Can you not break the link between you and the Casket?"

Loki wasn't certain the link between him and the Casket could be broken, or how he would go about breaking it, even if he wished to. "I tried to destroy Jotunheim. It would be a fitting punishment, if it ended up destroying me."

Her mouth flattened in disgust. "A clever answer for every question."

"I can't imagine what else you expected."

Sigyn walked past him, across the patch of grass toward the roots rising on the far side. He did not follow her, but stood watching the long, graceful line of her back, and the rounding of her hips. He knew from past experience that his hands fit perfectly, right there.

Near the end of their betrothal, he'd become convinced that she'd lied about her fledgling skill in magic, that she'd worked an enchantment upon him. He did not, typically, enjoy physical intimacy. He resented that his body sought it. He didn't want to need it, or to need anything. The loss of control annoyed him, the grunts and grapples leading up to it displeased him, more often than not. Thus, he could not understand why he should want to -- no, _need_ to -- touch her. Why her hands on his skin made him shiver, why her kisses made his head spin. Why he imagined he could entwine himself with her, here in the sunlit grass and the fallen leaves beneath Yggdrasil, sink into her, and drown. 

***


	5. Chapter 5

Loki finished building the gateway incantation in his mind, and cast it. Branches obediently rustled and creaked, unwinding themselves, and opening the way to Hjallsmuli. Nothing lay beyond the gateway. Nothing but blackness, and an icy wind pouring into Yggdrasil. Sigyn took three swift steps back, and then she ran. She did not run far, only to the trunk of Yggdrasil, and there she sank down, the dirty skirts of her gown pooled around her. She hid her face in her hands.

Loki lifted his hands to close the gateway. Leaves and flowers were already withering in the cold.  But, he hesitated as a bright flash of light caught his eye. Something floated at the edge of the void, spinning in slow circles. It was bright orange, rectangular, and had a blinking yellow light on one side. It looked... Midgardian. Borne on the cold current rushing into Yggdrasil, it drifted closer to him.

He stepped to the lip of the gateway,  and wrapped one arm around a branch. Stretching out his other hand, he caught hold of the rectangle. Now that he had it, he saw it was a latched metal case. He pulled himself back, and gestured at the gateway to close it. The branches knitted themselves together once more, sealing Hjallsmuli behind them. Loki crossed the frost-blighted grass to where Sigyn sat. Her hands lay curled in her lap, palms upward. Loki knelt next to her, laying the metal case on the grass beside him.

"Hjallsmuli is truly gone," she said. "Isn't it?"

He wanted to make this right for her. Somehow. Even though it was impossible. "Yes," he said.

She looked up at him. The bleak expression on her face cut him to the heart, the more so because he knew precisely how she felt.

"You will be welcomed in Asgard. I'm sure my mother will insist that you stay."

"Perhaps I am tired of perfect warm days full of sunshine, and perfect nights full of stars."

"It rains in Asgard," he said. "Sometimes."

"I have never seen a rainy day in Asgard. They are all perfect as well, I suppose."

"Of course. The Allfather would permit nothing less."

She said nothing.

"I would offer you the hospitality of Jotunheim," Loki said, "but Jotunheim is not a hospitable realm."

Again, she searched his face, her brow creased. For the first time in a long while, Loki wished his eyes were the blue she remembered. He looked away from her.

"What have you found?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. It appears to be Midgardian."

"How can that be?"

"They are very clever. One of them built a device similar to the Bifrost."

Sigyn's eyes widened. "Truly?"

Loki nodded, and unlatched the case. Inside, snug in a nest of gray foam padding, lay a device about as large as Loki's palm, constructed of dark Chitauri chitin, with a brushed metal rectangle welded to it. On the metal rectangle was a single green switch, under a plastic casing. Though Loki had never seen anything like it before, everything about it suggested Tony Stark had constructed it. In another compartment of foam lay a glossy black computer tablet. A small square of yellow paper was stuck to one end. Written on the paper in English, was "PUSH ME," with an arrow pointing toward a small, round divot on the bottom. Loki peeled the yellow paper away, and stuck it to the inside lid of the case.

"Should we push it?" Sigyn said.

Loki lifted the computer out of its padding, and handed it to Sigyn, who accepted it gingerly, cradling it between her hands as though it were a delicate relic.

"It's fairly sturdy," Loki said. "Go ahead."

Sigyn gently pressed the tablet's power button. The screen lit up, and she gasped. Loki was not surprised to see the stylized white bird of the SHIELD insignia materialize on the screen, surrounded by small glyphs. One of them blinked brightly, and then a window opened on the computer. It was a projection of a brown-haired Midgardian female sitting at a table. A _video_ , that was the word. Loki recognized Jane Foster immediately. While he'd been on Midgard, he'd briefly entertained the idea of kidnapping or murdering her. The Chitauri Leader had opposed the idea as a waste of time and resources. That had not been what prevented Loki from carrying out his plan, however; he'd simply been too busy for a side trip to Tromsø.

Jane glanced up past the camera. "Is it recording?"

"Yeah," answered another female out of sight. 

"Are you sure?"

"The thing says Rec and everything. You're good to go."

Jane brushed her hair back from her face. Small and dark as she was, she looked nothing like the women Thor preferred to flatter and bed, and then discard. 

"You're going to cut out this part, right?" she said to the unseen female.

"Oh, totally."

Jane settled herself, and looked into the camera.

"Well, I mean..." added the unseen female, " _I_ don't know how to do it, but I'm sure the SHIELD guys will do it before they send it, right?"

Jane looked alarmed, and then exasperated. She turned to the camera again, looking nervous but hopeful, and said, "Hello. Greetings from Earth. From Midgard. This is a message for Loki, and for Sigyn. My name is Dr. Jane Foster. I'm a specialist in astrophysics. Loki, I'm a friend of your brother's. He may have mentioned me; I wanted to bring a team of scientists to Jotunheim to study anomalous dark energies that we've detected. I hope this reaches you. I hope you're both okay. Thor sent us a message. A..." She glanced past the camera. "...talking raven. Who told us his name is Munin...." Jane broke off, and looked up again, not at her companion behind the camera, but to her side. "Excuse me, what are you doing?"

"Pulling up a chair," said a very familiar male voice.

"We're recording here," said the girl with the camera. "Can't you see the red light? Blinky-blinky."

Tony Stark swung a chair into frame, sat down next to Jane, and stabbed a finger at the camera.

 _"You,"_ he said. "I really hoped you'd been thrown into a deep, dark hole for the rest of forever."

"This isn't the time," Jane said stiffly. "Nobody is saying what happened in Germany and New York last year never happened. But, Thor --"

"Sure," Tony said. _"Thor."_ He turned to the camera. "Loki, your big bro swears up and down that you've had a change of heart." Stark pressed a hand to his chest. "I am a big fan of starting with the man in the mirror. But if you screw us over, I will personally kick your ass from earth, all the way back to Jotunheim."

Jane interposed, speaking to the camera instead of Stark, "We're trying to rescue you."

"Right," Stark said. "This is a rescue operation. Bifrost is broken. Thor is stuck in Asgard. At least until Jane's team finishes the math, and I can recalibrate the Starkgate."

The girl behind the camera said, "Pretty sure 'Starkgate' is a violation of about a gazillion trademark laws. Do you not watch the Sy-Fy Channel ever?"

Stark scowled at her.

Jane said quickly, "I don't know if you've tried to get back to Asgard already, but if you haven't, don't bother."

Stark said, "Loki, you and Sigyn — " He lifted a hand. "Hey. Hi. Tony Stark. Superhero. American treasure. Looking forward to meeting you. You guys need to get to someplace that's not falling apart. There's a homing beacon in the case there, with the iPad."

"It's calibrated to search in Vanaheim," Jane said, "We can't track you while you're inside the nexus... uh, inside Yggdrasil, I mean. And the rest of the multiverse is just too large to make searching practical. Find someplace stable, don't go too far from your exit point, and activate the beacon."

"Push the green button," Stark said. "We'll pick up your signal, and we'll come get you. Stay safe."

"Actually," said Jane, "Loki or Sigyn — if you could do me a huge favor — if you could take some video inside Yggdrasil, that would be amazing. It's easy. Just tap the Camera app button, and then hit the red Record button on the bottom of the screen. Everything else is pre-set." She glanced up. "Darcy, remind me to do that."

"Affirmative," said the girl behind the camera.

"We'll see you soon," Jane added.

"Good luck," added Darcy. She flapped a blurry hand in front of the lens. Waving goodbye.

The video went dark, and the window blinked closed.

Sigyn held the computer out to Loki. "What should we do? Go back to Kambrekk? It could be gone by now."

"Our best chance is to travel toward the innermost worlds of Vanaheim." Loki gave her an apologetic look, as he took the computer from her. "Quickly."

He stood up, automatically turning to hold out a hand to help her to her feet. He stopped himself. Instead, he pressed the Camera icon on the computer, and the screen filled with a view of moss and grass, and the tops of his boots. Midgardians and their toys. Lifting the tablet, Loki turned in a slow circle, making a record of the path, and the tangled roots. He tilted the tablet back, so the camera could capture the soaring trunk and the branches of Yggdrasil far above. He had no idea how Jane Foster thought this might help her investigate her "anomalous dark energies," but it was easy enough for him to oblige her. He moved the tablet down again, stopping when the camera captured Sigyn.

"Tony Stark doesn't like you much," Sigyn said.

"No one on Midgard likes me," Loki replied.

"He seems to like you less than Jane Foster."

"I threw him out a window."

"I don't understand what you've become, Loki."

Loki shut off the camera, and then tucked the computer back inside its padded case. Each time she said his name, her voice was a fishhook tugging at his heart. What could he say to her? Nothing. She wouldn't understand, any more than Thor would have. Thor had never pressed him for an explanation, thankfully. As far as Thor was concerned, what had happened to Loki was a passing madness, brought upon him by finding out his true parentage.  Loki was himself again, and that was all that mattered to Thor.

Loki had broached the subject only once with his brother: after Thor had been captured by the Chitauri. Loki would never forget the haunted look in Thor's eyes when he had found Thor in Dokkalfheim. Yet, all Thor remembered was being overpowered and rendered senseless, and then opening his eyes to see Loki bending over him. Thor was not a liar. If he claimed he did not remember, he did not remember. Thor had given Loki a rueful smile, and said that if he were as clever as Loki, he would have been able to talk the Chitauri into an alliance, just as Loki had done. Loki had smiled at Thor, and agreed, then changed the subject. 

"We should make for Gislavotn, he told Sigyn. "It is the closest world in Vanaheim to Asgard."

The gateway Gislavotn was not far, but as he and Sigyn approached, it quickly became obvious to Loki why Thor could not leave Asgard. Yggdrasil had grown a wall between the Realm Eternal and the lower realms. Over Loki's head, the paths ascending higher into Yggdrasil's branches were blocked by gauzy veils of white that rippled gently, moving in every stray breath of wind. A small gray spider with a slender body and long, graceful legs scuttled quickly across a heavy web strung across a nearby tree limb. Sigyn lifted her head, watching as the spider vanished into the shadows.

"They won't harm you," Loki said, "if you do not venture too near."

"Perhaps all ladies of  _Asgard_  are frightened of spiders. I am not."

He smiled. "You'd do well to respect these spiders."He lifted aside a leafy branch for her, and she stepped past him, ascending the narrow, twisting path, with another glance up at the webs. "Their venom is highly sought after, for sorcerous work. They are called — "

"Visknafiri," she said. "The whisperers."

"I taught you of the visknafiri?" Loki was surprised that he would have done so, and doubly startled that she would remember such a small fact from so long ago.

Sigyn gave him a disdainful look over her shoulder. "I've learned something of magic without you."

"Oh, have you indeed? Should I be worried?"

"Mock me if you must. Since you mock everything."

"I am only surprised," he replied.

"Why would you be surprised by my taking an interest in magic?" Sigyn said archly. "I cannot imagine."

Once, she had seemed captivated by his talk of magic. In the spells he had taught her. She had _pretended_ to be interested, he had told himself. She'd counterfeited a polite and pleasant interest, the same way she might hang upon Thor telling tales of hunts and battles. It was nothing more than another art of entrapment that maidens were taught by their mothers.

Sigyn walked ahead of him up the path, slapping the leaves and branches out of her way. One of the visknafiri scurried away from her. The spiders were timid; they never bit until trapped or provoked.  They were much closer than Loki preferred.

"I don't wish to quarrel with you," he said. They had never quarreled, before. 

"You shouldn't have followed me through the Bifrost, then."

"I had no choice." 

"Then I'm sorry to have obliged you." 

Loki caught her by the arm and spun her around to face him. "I did not come for you out of _obligation,_ Sigyn."

Sigyn's angry defiance cracked, and he saw the fear behind it. He let go of her immediately. Sick horror twisted his vitals. There had been a time, not too long ago, when he would gladly have slain her, to save himself further torment. Amid the noises of the birds and the insects, and the wind through the leaves, he heard it. The clicking and chittering of the Chitauri.

 _They are not here,_ he told himself. _They cannot be here._ _Not within Yggdrasil._

"Loki?" Sigyn said. "What is wrong?"

The Casket writhed, birthing spikes and sheer blades inside of him, deep bruise-indigo slicing into its pure azure and white, echoing Sigyn's words. _What is wrong?_

Loki shook his head. "It's nothing."

"Is Gislavotn far from here?" she asked him. Cautiously. As if she were speaking to a dangerous lunatic.

Which was exactly what he was, yet her tone still filled him with a bitter wrath, the same anger he'd clasped close to his heart like a lover in the dark.

"Not very far," Loki said.

Their route did not take them any nearer to the visknafiri and their tireless web-weaving. Loki could have fought his way through them, and torn a path open to Asgard by force. At what cost, he did not know, and didn't wish to know. The visknafiri were only spiders in the same way that Yggdrasil was only a tree.

He concentrated on building the spell to open a gateway t Gislavotn. Sigyn did not interrupt him with questions. One things about her had not changed, at least: she did not need to be constantly prattling. His silence never seemed to bother her. 

He halted at the gateway, lifted his hands and gestured, opening the thick weave of branches and leaves.  The breeze that floated through the branches from Gislavotn bore neither the chill of destruction, nor the stink of decay. It smelled like nothing at all. Not even like the recirculated air aboard the SHIELD Hellicarrier. Beyond the gateway stretched a field of tall grasses that bowed and bent gently in the wind. He stepped quickly through the gateway, into Gislavotn, and Sigyn followed. Something here was wrong. Loki had never traveled to Gislavotn, and he was still absolutely certain this was not how it was supposed to look.

Sigyn cast a nervous glance around her. Loki crouched in the pale grass that did not smell like grass, and unlatched the case. He pulled out the homing beacon, flicked up the plastic guard with his thumb, and pressed the green button. Immediately, and to his immense relief, it lit up and began to blink.

"Perhaps..." Sigyn began. Her voice dropped toneless into the silent air.

He gave her an inquiring look, and she shook her head. She wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her hands into the sleeves of Loki's coat. It was not cold here. She was afraid. So was he. Beyond Yggdrasil, he could not touch the Casket, and without it, he did not feel right inside. It seemed impossible that he was not uncomfortably warm, while she was not uncomfortably cold.

The sea of pale grasses stretched in all directions to the edge of sight. The sky was the same color as the grass. Had there been even a single cloud, the sky's greenish cast might have hinted at a gathering storm. But there was nothing.

Loki left the case lying open in the grass; he doubted closing up the homing beacon inside the case would interfere with its function. But the crushed-down place in the grass marked the way back into Yggdrasil. Though he could still fell the thin place in Gislavotn, he didn't trust his own senses. He pulled out the tablet once more, activated its camera, and recorded the eerie landscape, as well as Sigyn standing with her back to him, watching the distant horizon. He focused past her shoulder, at the endless sea of grass, at the horizon, where the green of the sky darkened to a smoky olive. Had it been that dark before? Or had it just now begun to darken?

As he turned in a slow circle, the long blades of grass brushed against his legs, and they did not feel the way grass ought feel. They clung to him, each one, briefly, like the cilia of some massive creature buried in the earth. When he returned to the place where he'd begun, he saw the change in the gateway. No longer a nearly-invisible shimmer in the air, it sparked now with bright blue light, the color startling in the dull air. With a brilliant flash, the gateway spat out a small object that landed in the grass with a muffled thump. Loki lowered the tablet.

The thing in the grass buzzed like a large, annoyed insect, and a beam of blue light shot from it, directed straight up at the sky, diffusing into a blue cloud a few yards from its source. The beam swiveled, lighting up the grass. It swept across Sigyn, and then Loki, passed them, returned and held for a moment. As if it had found what it sought, the light winked out. Loki scooped the orange case out of the grass, shoved the tablet inside, and snapped the latches shut.

The gateway flared with light. A sharp crack, the stinging, thundery smell of ozone, and Tony Stark stepped through the gateway. Like the blue light, the red and gold of his Iron Man suit seemed to vibrate, so intense were its colors. He turned in Loki's direction, and raised both hands, the repulsors of his suit alight.

A second eruption of light surged from the gateway, and another man of iron emerged. Unlike Tony's red and gold, the second iron suit was blue, silver and red, and it resembled Captain America's armor, with the five-pointed star on its front. Following Stark's lead, the other suit raised its hands and pointed its repulsors at Loki.

"We intend you you no harm," Loki said, his voice falling as hollow and flat as Sigyn's had.

"Loki?" Stark's voice emerged past the blank-faced helmet of his suit. The uncertainty in his tone was unmistakable.

Loki let a small smirk curve the corners of his mouth. "Well met, Tony Stark."

"Thor told us you'd changed. But I thought it was more, you know..." Stark gestured with one hand, keeping the other pointed at Loki. "On the inside."

"Tony," said the other iron suit; Loki didn't recognize his voice. "We need to hurry."

"Your companion is correct," Loki said. "Might we postpone this conversation?"

"You're certainly a lot more polite." Stark's head turned slightly, as he spotted Sigyn standing behind Loki. The faceplate of his suit retracted, revealing his face. "Hello, there."

"Ma'am," said the other iron suit, nodding to her. "Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, United States Army."

"Hello," Sigyn replied.

"See, Rhodey?" Stark said. "I told you there would be air."

"Yeah, you're brilliant. You're sure this is Loki?"

Turning to Loki, Stark raised his eyebrows. 

"I never did get that drink," Loki said.

"Okay, then. You know the deal. You pull any of your bullshit — "

"Give me your word you will keep Sigyn safe, until she can return to Asgard. You may do with me as you please. Abandon me here, if I strike such fear in your heart."

Stark smiled mirthlessly. "I wasn't the one who got my ass handed to me in Manhattan."

"It took your mightiest abomination to vanquish me."

 _"Guys,"_ Rhodes said. "Clock is ticking."

Stark deactivated his repulsors. "Come on." He glanced at Sigyn. "Both of you."

Loki was torn between wanting to warn Sigyn that the journey through the Chitauri transport device would be neither pleasant nor brief, and knowing that his warning would cause her to hesitate. He decided not to warn her. Rhodes was correct: it was far more important that they make haste. The current of energy linking Midgard to Gislavotn had flowed powerfully through the portal when Stark and Rhodes had first arrived, but now it was flickering. Even if Loki had not been able to sense that, Stark's metal suit had begun to lose its luster, dulling to the rust red of dried blood, and a flat yellowish-ochre. The sky was unmistakably darker.

"Go," Loki told Sigyn. "Swiftly. I will be right behind you."

She nodded and walked toward Stark and Rhodes. Stark moved out of the way, and Sigyn stepped through the bright blue light, and vanished.

"Your turn," Stark said.

Loki blinked, surprised. He had not entirely believed Stark's casual assurance that both he and Sigyn would be allowed passage to Midgard. But, he was not about to give Stark any reason to refuse him. He was not certain he could open another path to Yggdrasil, after the Midgardians had closed it behind them.  Even now, the visknafiri might be sealing off all passageways into Yggdrasil. Loki gave Stark a brief nod, and then he stepped into the shimmering blue light.

The journey was was so short as to be nearly instantaneous. Enormous currents of power rushed around him, held at bay by Stark's device. But, he was untouched by them. It was very like traveling the Bifrost. It was civilized. 

He stepped out of the encircling blue light, into a windowless concrete chamber, surrounded by SHIELD agents with guns, the Casket rushing into his awareness once more. In the center of the semicircle stood Nick Fury, hands clasped behind his back.

This was not the SHIELD base outside Puente Antiguo. This concrete room was smaller, and the energy that eddied around him bespoke a different location, far west of Manhattan, west and north of New Mexico, and very near the ocean, if not entirely surrounded by it.

Sigyn stood a few paces away. She did not look surprised to have found herself greeted by armed Midgardians, and Loki had only himself to blame for that.

Fury's face betrayed not the slightest flicker of surprise at Loki's changed appearance.  "Welcome back to Earth, Mr. Laufeyson."

Loki raised an eyebrow at the salutation. "Nick Fury of SHIELD. Your hospitality is most appreciated."

He held out the orange metal case to Fury. Several of the soldiers shifted nervously, but Fury took the case from Loki, and passed it to a subordinate who had hastened up to stand at his shoulder.

A humming rose behind Loki, sending a tremor the air and into the concrete. Loki glanced over his shoulder, and then he turned around for a better look. A Chitauri transport device rose above him, the smoky, swirling portal in its center surrounded by a frame of blocky steel. Cables and wires ran every which way across the floor, which had been covered in rubber matting. The portal flared blue, swirling and sparking with light, and Rhodes stepped through it, followed by Stark. The hum and vibration crescendoed until Loki felt it in his back teeth, and then it died away, the portal darkening.

"Impressed?" Stark asked him. Not waiting for an answer, he added, "I know what you're thinking. Why didn't that feel like it was peeling off my skin and boiling my intestines?"

"I was, in fact, contemplating a question very like that."

"I fixed it," Stark said. "A tweak here, a tune-up there, and voila. Easier than putting together an Ikea bookcase."

"You have never in your life put together a bookcase from Ikea," Rhodes commented from behind Stark.

"That's not true. This one time — " 

"Mr. Stark," Fury cut him off. "Would you and Colonel Rhodes please escort our Ms. Freyrsdöttir to her quarters?"

"Sure," Stark said, looking a bit disgruntled. "No problem."

Fury gestured for Sigyn to step toward him and, as she did, he added, "Ms. Freyrsdöttir, I'm Nick Fury, the Director of SHIELD. You look as though you might like a chance to relax for a bit."

"Nick Fury of SHIELD, my thanks," Sigyn said.

She gave Loki a brief look that he could not interpret, and then walked past him, toward Stark and Rhodes.

"C'mon," Stark said to her. "We've got all the five-star amenities here at SHIELD. We've even got a ping-pong table."

"What is a ping-pong table?" Sigyn asked him.

"Trust me. You'll love it."

"So, Ms. Freyrsdöttir," said Rhodes. "I've never met a goddess before. I'm looking forward to this opportunity for a cultural exchange."

Loki narrowed his eyes, watching the two metal-suited Midgardians walk away with Sigyn between them.

Stark added, "Did you know Rhodey here has been decorated three times for valor?"

"Valorous indeed," said Sigyn.

"I don't like to brag about it," Rhodes said.

"Mr. Laufeyson." Fury lifted an arm, asking Loki to walk with him. "A moment of your time."

"Sigyn is not to be harmed."

"She won't be. You have my word."

The soldiers surrounding Fury and Loki parted to allow them to pass, falling in behind them, as they crossed the concrete room.

Loki said, "Whatever your plans for me, I promise you that if Sigyn is made to pay for my crimes, even in the smallest degree, I shall bury all of you, and all of Midgard, in a winter so deep, you will curse every memory of spring."

"You're not in an ideal position to make threats."

Loki felt The Casket gather itself, eager to show its power. "On the contrary," he said.

"We let Thor take you back to Asgard once," Fury countered. "We won't do it a second time." Then he held up a hand, to forestall the retort on the tip of Loki's tongue. "I did not agree to your brother's request to extract you and Ms. Freyrsdöttir from Vanaheim, just so I could pick a fight." He glanced behind Loki, at the soldiers. "This time, let's talk things over. All right?"

"Very well," said Loki.

He walked with Fury through a doorway and into a narrow concrete corridor beyond the chamber. At the end of the corridor were two heavy doors of black metal, with an armed soldier standing on either side. One of the soldiers reached out to press a button as Fury approached. The doors slid open to reveal an elevator.

"After you," Fury said.

Loki stepped in, Fury followed, and the doors slid shut, with the soldiers on the other side, sealing Loki and Fury were in the elevator alone. Loki shot Fury a startled look, but Fury calmly pressed a button marked L-5, then clasped his hands behind his back once more.

"Are you not afraid?" Loki said.

"I respect you," Fury said. "As a powerful alien being. Who I'm sure could kill me without much effort. Also, without much of a point."

"You believe I could not escape your secret base?"

"Oh, I'm sure you could. But, where would you go? If what Dr. Foster and her team tell me is true, then very soon there won't be anywhere for any of us to go."

"What is it that you wish to discuss with me?"

"We can help each other," Fury said. "Even if that isn't the case, we don't need to be enemies."

Loki laughed. "You're full of such hope."

"I'm a practical man, Mr. Laufeyson."

The elevator doors slid open. The hallway beyond was not bare concrete; the floor was carpeted in gray, the walls painted beige and one side of the hallway was lined with windows. The view outside was a broad swath of night-dark water. Waves glinted in the exterior lights from the base. Loki didn't bother asking Fury where they were; he knew Fury wouldn't tell him.

A tall Asian female in a black business suit emerged from one of the doors, tapping on a tablet computer. She drew up short when she saw Fury and Loki, and then she said to Loki, "Good evening, sir." Addressing Fury, she added, "Should I hold your calls?"

"Yes. Thank you, Melanie," Fury replied.

He opened another door, and Loki preceded him into what he assumed was Fury's office. It was neither large nor luxurious, but it did command an impressive view.

"I'll be brief," said Fury. "I know you've had a long trip."

"You're being so accommodating. I cannot help wondering why."

"Thor tells me ruling our world isn't at the top of your to-do list any longer."

"You take my brother at his word?"

"He hasn't given me any reason not to. But, I'd like to hear it from you."

Loki walked across the room, toward the windows.

Fury added, "We'd prefer peaceful relations with you and your realm. We could learn a lot from each other."

A year or so ago, Loki would have scornfully denied there was anything he could learn from mortals. He had learned he was wrong, for one thing.

"Asgard sees the jotunar as monsters," Loki said. "But, Jotunheim could be a powerful friend to Midgard."

"Earth won't join you in any war against Asgard."

Loki shook his head. "The might of Asgard would burn both our worlds to cinders." He lifted a hand and let it fall again. "Regardless, Thor will likely inherit the throne of Asgard very soon, and I have no wish to make war against my brother."

"But, _you_ were king of Asgard, briefly."

"And I have been king of Jotunheim for a year and more. I don't believe Thor would have omitted that item of information."

"He didn't," Fury said.

"My predecessor, Laufey, was a brutal ruler," Loki said. "Laufey made a conquest of the Nine Realms, and his ambition reached as high as Asgard. He failed. Because of him, my people have endured centuries of civil war. Of isolation. Of darkness. I know not where I should lay the blame for their suffering. Upon Laufey's greed, or upon the fact that he was not _quite_ greedy enough. Either way, he gave no thought the jotunar upon whose backs he trod, to reach Asgard."

Fury was silent, assessing him. Loki recognized it as a tactic to provoke him into speaking further, but he added anyway, "Jotunheim has no wish for war. It has already cost us everything."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Fury. "Dr. Foster is convinced you could be a big help to us. And vice versa."

"That is why you agreed to my brother's request to extract Sigyn and myself from Vanaheim."

"Like I said. I'm a practical man," replied Fury. "What do you say?"

Loki smiled without humor. "If I agree to help you, you will simply accept my word with blind trust, the same way you accept the word of my brother?"

"Well, you've never lied to me, either," Fury said dryly.

Loki gave a startled laugh.

Fury walked across the room to where Loki stood, and held out his hand. Loki recognized the gesture; in many Midgardian cultures, the joining of hands signified sealing a bargain. Arriving at an accord. Loki reached out and clasped Fury's hand.

***


	6. Chapter 6

Fury himself escorted Loki to a guest chamber, as though Loki were a visiting ambassador and not a criminal of war. Loki did not miss the fact that the SHIELD base swarmed with soldiers, that quite possibly it was located in the middle of the ocean, several miles off the coast and that, aside from the uppermost levels, the base was windowless concrete and steel.

The room provided for Loki was likewise windowless, small and utilitarian. It held a narrow bed, a table with a computer on it, a chair, and another door at the far end, which likely opened into a bathing chamber. 

"Probably not what you're used to," Fury said, from where he stood in the hallway behind Loki. "But it's what we've got."

"It will suffice," Loki replied. He'd slept in worse places. "Where have you — "

The door across the hallway opened, and Sigyn emerged. She looked from Loki to Fury.

"Greetings, Nick Fury."

"Ms. Freyrsdöttir."

Her gaze returned to Loki, and she did not have to ask out loud. He knew what her question was.

Fury said, "I'll leave you to get settled. There's a briefing tomorrow morning with Dr. Foster's team. I'll send someone to escort you, at about ten o'clock."

"My thanks, Nick Fury," Loki said.

Fury looked slightly surprised, or possibly amused. "You're welcome." He turned to Sigyn. "We'd like you at the briefing as well, Ms. Freyrsdöttir."

"I will not be of much use to you, Director Fury. I am no warrior."

"It's a scientific briefing."

Sigyn smiled. "I am no scientist."

"But your home is Vanaheim," said Loki.

"I shall consider it," Sigyn said.

"I'll see you both tomorrow, then," said Fury, as if the matter was decided.

Fury headed down the hallway, leaving Loki alone with Sigyn. She had discarded her ruined gown, and now she wore a large, dark gray tunic with the SHIELD logo on the front, and a pair of dull green trousers, the type that Midgardians referred to as fatigues. She did not look comfortable in her borrowed clothing. No Asgardian lady, not even Sif, would wear such garments. But, Sigyn's hair hung in loose, damp coils, and she smelled of powdery flowers now, instead of smoke.

"All is well?" she said cautiously.  "I feared..." She bit her lip.

"If I'd thought we had any other course of action but to accept help from the Midgardians, I would have chosen that instead."

Sigyn's brows drew together. "Then, they have forgiven you for your crimes against them?"

Loki shook his head. "Fury and I both wish to save our realms from the corruption that has destroyed yours. We've struck a truce."

"Your realm. You mean Jotunheim."

"Asgard, I imagine, will remain inviolate, if not forever, then until everything else has been destroyed."

"And if you and Dr. Jane Foster's team cannot save the Nine Realms?"

Loki shrugged. "As we face our inescapable and horrifying doom, the Midgardians will no doubt comfort themselves in their traditional fashion: with the knowledge that they made their best effort. "

"What an odd philosophy."

"There is much I don't understand about this realm," Loki admitted.

Much indeed. Fury's soldiers should have imprisoned Loki the moment he arrived, and forced him to help Jane Foster's team by using Sigyn as leverage. Loki would have helped SHIELD regardless, even if Sigyn had not been with him. Jotunheim had saved him. He would go as far as he could go, to repay that debt.

"I shall see you on the morrow, Loki," Sigyn said.

"Tomorrow," he said.

He was on the verge of bidding her to rest well, but he knew she would not. No more than he. Sigyn stepped inside her room, and closed the door. Loki did likewise. He looked around the narrow little chamber; the bed took up most of its space. The desk and the chair were made of wood, but not the type of wood Loki was accustomed to. He ran his hand across the shiny finish of the desktop. It was bits of wood, ground up and formed together once more with glue. A small metal cabinet was tucked underneath the desk. He knelt to open it. A tug of resistance and a breath of cool air: it was the device called a refrigerator, though much smaller than he'd previously encountered. Inside, bathed in cold light, were several pieces of fruit, two unidentifiable objects wrapped in white paper, and six plastic bottles of water.

That Fury's staff had provided Loki with food, so he was not obliged to venture out into the base and seek it, was a small gesture, but one he appreciated. He was exhausted, and his clothing was filthy. _He_ was filthy. He stank of blood and ash and decay. He was not hungry, but he pulled out one of the water bottles and an apple, and set them on the desk. Then he investigated the door at the far end of the room. As he'd suspected, it was a bathing niche. It contained sink, a toilet, and one of his favorite Midgardian conveniences: a shower. 

Loki stripped off his boots and his muddy, sooty clothing, and kicked them across the floor.

The bathing niche was barely large enough for him to turn around in, but he spent a long time under the scalding water, as if it could wash away not only the smell of Kambrekk, but everything he'd done on Midgard. All the destruction, all the needless deaths of so many mortals. It had served his overmastering ambition to rule Midgard, and to rule it unmercifully. Beyond that, he had not thought at all. He had never wanted to rule Asgard, yet when Thanos offered him Midgard in exchange for the Tesseract, Loki had felt certain conquering Midgard would wipe away all of his anger, all the pain of his family's betrayal. Not once had it struck him as strange. Not until he'd seen the devastation wrought by the Chitauri, had he questioned his own desire. And by then, it had been too late. 

He braced himself as he stepped out of the bathing niche, but the small, concrete-walled chamber was exactly as he had left it. No decay, no destruction. Perhaps, now that he had seen Kambrekk and Gislavotn for himself, now that he knew of the corruption invading the Nine Realms, the visions had fulfilled their purpose. He had read accounts of spontaneous visions, but he had never experienced them before. He hoped he never would again.

Clothing had been provided for him, neatly folded on a shelf above the bed. The same tunic and trousers as had been given to Sigyn. He would not wear them. Retrieving his jotun garments from the floor, he shook them out. A flick of his fingers rid them of their wrinkles, dirt and ash. He tossed them over the back of the chair, and crossed the room to stretch out on the narrow bed. He had not slept for a long while in Jotunheim. He had not slept at all in Asgard. In the chambers that had been his own since he had been old enough not to sleep in the nursery, he had lain wakeful, staring up at the ceiling, not even bothering to snuff the candles. Yet, inside the SHIELD base, he felt strangely safe. Perhaps it was the small size of the room, or its lack of windows. Or, perhaps it was because the Midgardians had conquered the Chitauri.

The apple and the bottle of water waited for him on the desk. Condensation dripped down the side of the plastic water bottle. Loki considered getting out of bed to retrieve them, but he was tired, and the bed was surprisingly comfortable, and he fell asleep within moments.

***

At fifteen minutes before ten, according to the time display on the computer, there came a knock at the door. Loki opened the door, to find Clint Barton standing outside. Loki stepped back in surprise and displeasure. He'd expected Barton to confront him, but he had not anticipated it occurring so soon. Barton took advantage of Loki's inadvertent retreat, and walked into the room.

"I had to see for myself," Barton said, as he shut the door behind him. "Stark told me, but I didn't believe him."

"By all means," Loki said. "Do come in."

Barton's face was hard and set. "This is the way it's gonna go. Director Fury is my boss, so I'm gonna follow orders. I'm even gonna trust his judgment. At least until you give me a reason not to. And believe me, I'll be looking for you to give me a reason."

"I would not expect you to act otherwise," Loki said.

Barton's eyes narrowed, as if he suspected Loki was mocking him.

Loki added, "For what it's worth, I regret my actions. I'm sorry for what I did to you."

A frown flickered across Barton's face, and then he laughed and shook his head. "Are you? Really? I find that hard to believe. We're nothing to you. We're ants, you're the boot. You said so yourself."

"You believe I am incapable of change? That in the entirety of my very long existence, I have never once made an error in judgment?"

"Isn't that what makes you a god?" Barton said sarcastically. "Gods don't make mistakes."

What had made Loki a god was a moment of soft-hearted folly, when the Allfather had stolen him from Jotunheim. A mistake. Loki ran his fingertips along the pulverized wood of the desktop. It offered up no impression of where it had been made, nor who its maker had been. "I did what I believed I needed to do, to achieve what I thought I desired. I was wrong. What I thought of mortals was wrong." He looked up at Barton. "My reasons cannot mean anything to you. I know that."

"Maybe," Barton said. "Maybe not."

"Curious. You seem less angry now than when you walked through the door. Did you not expect me to apologize?"

"To be honest," Barton said, "no, I didn't."

"Ah," Loki said. "Well then."

"Why did you do it?"

"Pride."

Barton nodded, as if Loki's response had satisfied him, though Loki knew his response was not at all satisfactory.

"It's after ten," Barton said. "Let's get your girlfriend, and get to the briefing."

"Sigyn is not my girlfriend."

Barton was already in the hallway, and he either didn't hear Loki, or decided not to heed him. Loki was not looking forward to meeting Jane Foster's team. Never once had he thought he would return to Midgard. In the hallway, Sigyn thrust Loki's coat into his hands. Rather than vanish it, Loki donned once more, though it bore the smoky smell of Kambrekk. The coat was only fur and wool, but without it he had begun to feel unarmored.

The chamber of briefing was on L-5, the same level of the SHIELD base that held Director Fury's office. It had one wall of windows looking out over the ocean, and it was dominated by a large table of the same pulverized and reconstructed wood that comprised the small desk in Loki's chamber. Around the table were arranged nearly a score of chairs. The room was empty, save for Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, and another dark-haired female. The three of them stood at the far end of the conference room with their backs to the door, watching a large monitor mounted to the wall. The video displayed upon it was the one Loki had recorded in Gislavotn, with its endless grassland and brooding greenish sky.

The conference room smelled like coffee, bread and sugar. _Coffee._ Most wondrous of all Midgardian delicacies. Loki's gaze flicked to the far end of the room, where a second table held an assortment of cups and urns, and a platter of small pastries.

A raven perched on the back of one of the chairs. Large, glossy and black, unconcernedly preening its feathers. Munin, the Allfather's favorite. Trapped here, just as Thor was trapped in Asgard.

Barton halted in the doorway to the room, standing at Loki's side exactly as he had stood when the scepter had enslaved him. He realized this at the same moment as Loki; he shouldered past Loki into the room, and yanked one of the chairs out from the table, dropping into it with a thump and a squeak-rattle of springs. 

Jane, Selvig, and the dark-haired girl all turned around.

"Oh," said Jane. She gave Loki a wary smile. "Hi. Good morning."

"Whoa," said the other female.

Jane shot her a glare.

Selvig's face was a study in brittle calm. "Darcy. Loki and Sigyn are our guests." His measured politeness was not at all like the Erik Selvig Loki knew.

Darcy hopped down from the edge of the table where she'd been sitting. "Yeah, but..." She turned to Jane and Selvig, then back to Loki, and then she gave him a determined look. "So. Thor likes coffee. You guys want coffee?" 

Loki wanted coffee. He yearned for coffee with a desperate passion. He glanced at Sigyn. "Coffee," he explained, "is a beverage consumed by Midgardians throughout the day, served sometimes warm and sometimes over ice, with cow's milk and various nectars added to it."

"Well, we're not Starbucks," Darcy said hastily, as she walked to the back of the room. "We've got milk. And cream, I think. And sugar, and fake sugar."

"Cream and sugar," Loki said. "If you please."

"I as well," Sigyn said. "Thank you."

"You won't be sorry," Darcy told her. "Just don't smash your mugs on the floor when you're done, okay?"

"That is not a custom observed on Midgard?" Sigyn said. "Midgardians are less barbarous than I was led to believe."

There were few better ways to show one's appreciation in a crowded, noisy feasting hall, than smashing a drinking vessel or two, but Loki declined to argue with Sigyn. Those who did not fight or feast understood neither fighting nor feasting. Instead, he said, "Jane Foster. My brother speaks most highly of you."

"He speaks highly of you, as well," Jane replied cautiously.

Loki could not contradict her without giving insult; he said, "I hope our collaboration will prove fruitful."

She smiled. "So do I."

Sigyn walked across the conference room, choosing a seat on the opposite side of the table from where Barton was sprawled in his chair. Loki left an empty seat between himself and Sigyn, and sat down farther from the large screen, which now showed a white SHIELD logo on a blue ground. Darcy set a mug of coffee at his elbow, and he gave her a nod of thanks. The mug was also blue, with a white SHIELD log on it. Naturally. Loki took a sip of his coffee, warm and milky and sweet. Marvelous.

Tony Stark walked into the room, and he gave Loki a smirk. "Morning, Blueberry Muffin. Sleep well?"

"About as well as you, I expect," Loki replied.

Stark looked startled, and then he laughed. "I don't _want_ to like you," he said, then he paused, as if he were considering it. "Which is convenient, considering..."

"Let's get started," said Director Fury, as he strode into the room. He dropped a stack of folders on the end of the table opposite where Jane stood. "Agent Barton. You're not required to attend this briefing. You're dismissed. Thank you."

Barton looked like he was about to argue but he nodded to Fury. "Sir."

He stood up, shot Loki a hard look of warning, and then he walked past Stark and out the door. Stark took the seat he'd vacated. Fury sat down as well.

"Dr. Foster. We're all very interested in your team's findings."

Jane swept back her hair. "For some weeks now, I've been picking up some bizarre energy readings. At first, what attracted my attention was that the Einstein-Rosen bridge — " She glanced at Loki. "The Bifrost — wasn't behaving the way my calculations told me it ought to behave."

Selvig added, "Obviously, there's a lot we don't understand about the Bifrost, but Thor did provide us with some very helpful information, which advanced our understanding considerably. Darcy? If you would?"

"Sure thing."

Darcy had been standing at the back of the room, feeding bits of a frosted pastry to Munin. She hastened to the front of the room, and flopped into a chair near the screen. Munin fluffed his feathers and uttered a soft croaking mutter; Loki did not catch the raven's words. Darcy scooped up a wireless keyboard sitting on the table, set it in her lap, and swiveled around in her chair to face the screen. The SHIELD logo disappeared, replaced by a screen full of icons. Then a file opened, showing a graph with colored bars along a timeline.

Selvig said, "After Thor destroyed the Bifrost two years ago, Jane and I started looking for another way to reach Asgard."

"But we realized," Jane said, "that we couldn't build a Bifrost of our own, because there was no energy to do so. The Bifrost, or the Einstein-Rosen bridge, isn't really a bridge. It's more like a tunnel, although, that's not accurate, either."

"Regardless," Fury said, "the tunnel caved in."

"No, it's more like..." She thought about it for a moment, then she said to Fury, "Imagine there _was_ a tunnel, but it vanished, and so did the hill you dug it through. There'd be no way to dig it out again, because there's nothing to dig."

Fury frowned. "You're saying that region of space doesn't exist anymore? How is that possible?"

"Because the Bifrost is not a _region_ ," Loki said.

"The bridge is a concept," Jane said. "Your tunnel and your hill. They're imaginary. Basically."

Stark sat back in his seat. Loki straightened, and Sigyn, who had heretofore listened quietly, uttered a small sound of surprise. Jane mistook her reaction, and shrugged.

"I realize," she said, "that's not entirely accurate, either."

"On the contrary," Loki said. "That is impressively accurate, Jane Foster."

With a rustle of feathers, Munin took wing and flapped across the room, landing on the back of Darcy's chair. She reached up to pet his head.

"Without the Bifrost," Sigyn said, "Summoning the power to span the void between realms would be a sorcery most dark and treacherous." 

Stark held up both hands. "I'm not comfortable talking about sorcery. Not unless I have a bag of dice with me."

Jane laughed, Selvig smiled, Darcy looked mystified, and Fury said, "Once the Chitauri arrived, you no longer needed the Bifrost to contact Asgard."

Stark nodded enthusiastically. "Chitauri tech is space folding. A completely different animal from the Bifrost. It was all theory, too, until we got our hands on their that transport device. But, it's all hard science. Nothing you'd get burned at the stake for."

"This is physics," Jane said, and inclined her head in Loki and Sigyn's direction. "The way we and the Asgardians talk about it may be different, but its just as valid as Chitauri technology."

"I'm not saying it isn't _valid_ ," Stark replied. "I'm saying this whole ' most dark and treacherous sorcery' business is freaky. The fact that it's valid science makes it even freakier."

Fury said, "It's also vague. What does this have to do with the threat you've discovered?"

Loki replied on Jane's behalf, "It is not the sorcery itself. It is the _result_ of such sorcery."

Jane nodded. "Exactly. Last year, Thor arrived on Earth from Asgard. There was no Bifrost to bring him here."

"Odin sent him," Fury said. For the first time, there was uncertainty in his voice. "That was my understanding."

"Yes," Jane said. "And, looking back to that time, it was shortly after that event that the anomalous readings began to appear. Except back then, they were too faint to detect, unless we were looking for them specifically."

Selvig said, "At first, we thought the readings must have been caused by the Chitauri portal that brought Loki to our world."

Loki could not help noticing that Selvig directed his attention entirely at Fury as he spoke.

Selvig added, "Jane and I thought the Chitauri portal ripped a hole between their universe and ours. That their transport technology was never intended to be used over such immense distances, and that it caused permanent damage."

"You believed we hadn't entirely closed the rift," Fury said.

Stark curled his hands into fists, and then put them in his lap.

"We thought that might be the case," said Selvig.

"But, you never alerted SHIELD." 

"The numbers didn't support it," Jane said. "We realized we were wrong almost immediately."

"Chitauri tech is stable," Stark said. "Sustainable. From what I can tell, they've been using portals for a while."

He glanced up at Loki, his eyebrows raised enquiringly.

Loki took another sip of his coffee, and nodded. "The Chitauri are a space-faring society, and have been so for many hundreds of years. Jane Foster is correct that their means of transport are not intended for travel over such a great distance, but once the location of the Tesseract had been revealed to them, it was simple enough for them to make modifications."

" _How_ exactly did they accomplish those modifications?" Stark said. "That's info I would love to have."

"I don't know," Loki replied

Stark's brows drew together in disbelief and displeasure.

Loki said mildly, "I have given my word to Director Fury that I will help you, to preserve both our realms. If I knew aught of their technology, I would gladly share it with you."

"Come on." Stark leaned forward on the table. "You really expect me to believe that? Thor told me the Chitauri offered you Earth in exchange for the Tesseract."

"Yes," said Loki.

Stark appeared to be about to press the point, but he said instead, "Doesn't matter. I can crack this myself, given enough time."

"I look forward to it," Loki said.

Stark eyed him, but didn't reply.

Fury said, "Dr. Foster, you determined that the anomalous readings weren't the fault of the Chitauri?"

Jane nodded. "That's right." She gestured to Stark. "By the time we noticed the readings, Mr. Stark — "

 _"Tony,"_ said Stark, as if this wasn't the first time he'd corrected her.

"Tony," she said, "had been conducting short-range trials with his modified Chitauri transport device for several months. And a long-range mission to send Thor and Sif and her Warriors Three to Jotunheim. If it had been the Chitauri device, we would have picked up the readings as soon as Tony started his trials. But, we didn't. There was one spike that correlated with Thor's arrival on Earth, and then there was another spike several months later, a lot larger."

"As though," Loki said quietly, "far more effort had been expended to gather the same amount of power."

Darcy said, "Scraping the last bit of peanut butter out of the jar, just so you don't have to eat naked toast."

Stark laughed. "Same amount of peanut butter, lots more work."

Loki had no idea what peanut butter might be, but he understood what Darcy meant. "An absurd analogy," he said, "but apt."

"You know what the second spike was," Jane said to Loki.

Loki nodded. "Several months after my return to Asgard, the Allfather sent me to Jotunheim."

"Seems like that worked out okay for you," said Stark.

"Eventually."

Fury turned to Loki. "What can you tell us about this type of energy?"

"Not very much. I understand it only imperfectly."

"So, you don't practice this..." Stark waved one hand, looking uncomfortable. "... dark and treacherous sorcery?"

"No," Loki replied. "There are secret paths between the realms, hidden gateways I can open, in and out of Yggdrasil." He gestured at Jane. "What you call the nexus. But, even I cannot travel without using the power of the Bifrost.  Only a little power, here and there, amplified by my own magic. Still, without the Bifrost, I could not travel at all." He turned the cooling mug of coffee between in his hands. "When the Allfather sent me to Jotunheim, the Bifrost was yet not strong enough to carry me. I could have traveled to Jotunheim on my own, of course, had I wanted to."

"But, you didn't," Stark said.

"Absolutely not. The Allfather needed to gather dark magic enough to open a portal between Realms. It is a magic that only he knows well enough to wield. There is almost nothing written of it, even in the palace libraries of Asgard. For me to summon such power without full understanding, would be extraordinarily stupid."

"Fair enough," Stark said.

Jane said, "But, it's ripping holes in space-time. Odin must know about the repercussions." 

"I'm sure he does," Loki said. "The damage it causes will repair itself, given time."

Sigyn said, "I cannot believe Odin would risk the entire Nine Realms simply to punish you. Not when he could have held you in Asgard's dungeon until the Bifrost regained its strength."

Loki sighed and shook his head. "Perhaps he underestimated the damage he had caused. Perhaps something else occurred, which prevented him from working healing spells to correct it. I was summoned back to Asgard because he is unwell. He will soon take the Sleep of the Ancients."

"You mean he's dying?" Darcy said sharply.

"Not in the way that you understand it. Lady Sigyn, and my brother and I... Lady Sif and her Warriors Three — we are young gods. It is possible for us to be slain, and never return from the lands beneath. But, the Allfather is an ancient and immensely powerful god. Even death must bend a knee to him."

"Oh," said Darcy, wide-eyed. "And how old are you? In Earth years, I mean."

"I am one thousand, one hundred and seven," Loki replied.

"That's a lot of birthday candles."

Sigyn said, "This dark magic has corrupted the Bifrost, and the lands of Vanaheim, and I fear its corruption will spread until it has consumed everything."

"You're right to fear it," Selvig said to her. "But Jane and I think we have a way to stop it."

"How so?" Sigyn said. "You are only mortals."

"Don't hold that against us," said Selvig with a laugh.

Loki glanced up and his eyes met Selvig's for a second, before Selvig looked away.

"I have underestimated mortals," Loki told Sigyn. "It was a mistake, on every occasion."

Sigyn frowned at him. Across the table, Stark was frowning as well, and they both looked nonplussed, although why Stark should look that way, Loki could not fathom. The Avengers had defeated Loki. Not to give them due respect would be churlish, and unworthy of him.

He turned his attention to Jane. "What is your plan, Jane Foster?"

Jane braced her hands on the conference table. "Find the hole in space-time. Send Tesseract energy through the hole."

"That will accomplish nothing more than drawing the corruption back to the Tesseract."

She held up a finger. "What I want to do is more like... chumming the waters. Leaving a trail of bait. A targeted stream, delivered as close as possible to the space-time rift. Or through the rift, if I can work out how to do that."

"I see," said Loki. "Lure the corruption through the rift."

"Then seal up the rift up behind it."

"How do you propose to seal the rift?"

She crinkled her nose. "That's the part I haven't worked out yet. Or really... most of the parts. Mr. St-- _Tony_ and Erik and I are working to modify the machine that Erik built for you, um... last year, the one he designed to focus the Tesseract."

Fury said, "But the Tesseract is in Asgard. And without the Bifrost, it's impossible to reach Asgard."

"Unless I figure out how to reach Asgard with the Starkgate," Stark put in.

"That seems unlikely," Loki said.

Stark raised an eyebrow at him. "Challenge accepted."

Jane said, forcefully, "I'm not finished."

She scooped the remote control out of Darcy's hand. Darcy jerked upright.

"I wasn't asleep!"

"Only  _you_ , Darcy Lewis, would zone out during a meeting about the fate of our entire universe," Tony said, sounding affectionate and annoyed in equal measure.

Jane aimed the remote at the screen, and clicked through a few slides, until she arrived at a diagram depicting the Nine Realms as circles, connected by curving lines. It was accurate; Loki had expected no less, especially considering the information Thor must have shared with Jane.

"Thanks to the data collected for us by Loki and Sigyn," Jane said, "we now have a clear idea of where each of the Nine Realms are located, in relation to one another." She gestured at the diagram. "Most of the realms are old, with Asgard being the oldest. The second youngest of all the realms is Vanaheim..." Jane pointed at the diagram, indicating where Vanaheim lay, not far from Asgard. "Here."

Fury said, "And that's where the rift is located?"

"Actually no," said Selvig. "We haven't pinpointed the location of the rift. We believe the dark energy is drawn to Vanaheim because, compared to seven of the other eight realms, Vanaheim well... fresh meat, if you'll pardon the expression."

"Vanaheim," Sigyn said quietly, "was all but destroyed during the war between the Aesir and the Vanir — the gods of Asgard and the gods of Vanaheim."

Selvig said with a smile, "I know about the war between Asgard and Vanaheim. It's part of our mythology."

"Then you also must know," Sigyn said, "that Odin recreated much of Vanaheim many thousands of years ago, after the Aesir and the Vanir were at peace."

Selvig nodded.

"If Vanaheim is the _second_ youngest realm," Fury said, "Does that mean the youngest realm has already been destroyed?"

Jane and Selvig exchanged a glance.

"No," said Selvig. "It's perfectly fine. And we have no idea why."

Darcy added, "Guess which realm is the youngest."

"I don't have time for guessing games," Fury said.

"I do," said Stark. "Does this realm start with j, and end with otenheim?"

"How can that be?" said Sigyn. "Jotunheim is ancient. Far older than any of the lower realms, save Helheim. Every child knows that." She blinked, frowned, and added, "Most every child."

Jane said, "It may have something to do with a powerful device very recently brought to Jotunheim. The Casket of Ancient Winters."

"No," Loki said.

Jane turned to him, brows drawn in puzzlement.

"The Casket of Ancient Winters will not be used to power your machine. You have the Chitauri scepter. Make use of that."

"The scepter has nowhere near enough power."

"Then you will find some way to amplify its power."

From the corner of his eye, Loki saw Fury shift position, as if about to rise to his feet, but he stopped when Jane spoke.

"Please," she said. "We need to help each other. Jotunheim is the only realm with a device anywhere near the Tesseract's power."

"The Casket was stolen from Jotunheim once before," Loki said. "Its loss nearly destroyed my realm. I will not allow it to be stolen again, and I will not risk its destruction to fuel some theoretical device that may or may not actually function."

"You would rather see Jotunheim destroyed," said Jane.

"You have not yet given me reason to believe that any of us can avert our destruction."

"Then why should it matter if you let me use the Casket?"

"If the Casket cannot halt Jotunheim's destruction, then perhaps I can postpone it."

"For a little while, maybe," Jane said.

"Long enough that my people and I might discover a way to save our realm."

"And to hell with the rest of us?" said Stark.

"That is not what I said."

"It's what you _meant_. You haven't changed at all. We don't mean anything to you. We're only mortals."

"As are my jotunar. Only mortals, like yourselves. Except, I swore to give them my protection. If I truly were as heartless as you claim, why would I not hand you the Casket in exchange for my liberty?"

Stark pressed his lips together, but he said nothing else. Loki didn't look at Sigyn. He had given her yet another reason to hate him, but he would not sacrifice Jotunheim to win her good opinion.

"You aren't a prisoner here," Fury said.

"Am I not? A word in the ear of your World Council would change that in an instant."

Fury replied calmly, "You don't object to helping us find a way to amplify the scepter's power."

"I do not," said Loki.

"Then let's focus on that. As far as the rest goes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, and I see no reason for Jotunheim to be endangered, if there is no need to endanger it."

Stark fumed, his fists clenched, until he apparently found it impossible to keep silent any longer, and burst out with, "That is bullshit, Fury! Have you struck a deal with him?"

"Yes," Fury replied. "I have. Mr. Laufeyson and I agreed to keep the interests of both our worlds in mind. I do not want to be sitting in my office every day, wondering when I need to scramble the Avengers to fight off an attack from Jotunheim. All of you will work together, and you will all be professionals, and you will solve this problem, and that's the last I am going to hear about it."

"Fine," said Stark.

Fury pinned Jane with a hard look.

She nodded. "Of course. Absolutely." She glanced over at Loki. "I'm sorry."

"No apology needed," Loki said. "I understand your concern. It is the same as mine."

Fury scooped up his pile of folders and paperwork. "Excellent. Is there anything else we need to discuss?"

"If I may," Sigyn said.

"The floor is yours, Ms. Freyrsdöttir."

"Tony Stark," she said. "You have endeavored to calibrate the Chitauri device to reach Asgard, without success."

"Yet," Stark said. "Without success _yet_."

"If this dark corruption consumes the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil, Asgard will be consumed as well. Would it not be more prudent to strive toward reaching the worlds beyond Yggdrasil?"

Loki was struck voiceless by the horror that filled him from his vitals, outward to his limbs.

Stark narrowed his eyes. He looked from Loki, to Sigyn, and he said slowly, "You mean the Chitauri homeworld?"

His eyes returned to Loki. Considering. Evaluating. Loki forced his face to blankness, but he suspected he had already betrayed himself.

"Surely there must be other worlds than that of the Chitauri," Sigyn said.

"I suppose so," Stark replied. "But, Huckleberry Hound here is the only one who's actually stepped foot beyond the Bifrost. I'd like to hear what he thinks about it."

"You would be better off staying in Midgard and dying," Loki said.

"So says the ruler of a realm he can protect with his vastly powerful Casket," Sigyn said sharply. "I have no homeworld."

Loki had nothing to say to that. The worlds of Jotunheim were not very populous, but most of them were too barren and cold to welcome jotunar, much less a flood of Midgardian refugees. 

Sigyn turned to Fury. "Your armies are mighty. You could make a conquest of a world, and settle your people there."

Fury said, "That's not how we prefer to make an entrance."

"The Chitauri have strength enough to hold their homeworld against invaders," Loki said. "So it seemed to me. Or, perhaps they possess nothing worth starting a war over. They are not the greatest military power in the worlds beyond. Do not ask me who that might be. I have no idea."

"You mentioned they have a master," Fury said.

"I know not much about him, either."

Stark said, "But you also didn't know about the Chitauri before you... y'know..." He raised a finger, and then swooped it back down toward the table.

"I did not think there was anything beyond the Nine Realms."

"How did you find the Chitauri, then?"

"They found me." Loki swallowed, and forced himself to continue, forced his voice to remain level. "Before then, I wandered. For quite some time."

He was not even sure of that. It had seemed like centuries he had traveled, lost, through worlds inexplicable, illogical and horrifying, before the Chitauri discovered him more dead than alive. All of that might have been an illusion. Or it might have occurred. Time moved strangely in the worlds beyond, and the Chitauri had done unspeakable things to him.

"Then, you can tell us what those other worlds are like." Jane's brown eyes gleamed with excitement.

"They are a nightmare beyond imagining, Jane Foster."

Her curiosity softened into concern; even Stark said nothing. For a moment. Then he folded his hands on the tabletop.

He said, "Let's say Doomsday Smurf is right --"

"I have a _name_ , Tony Stark," Loki snapped.

To Loki's surprise, Stark looked a bit chastened. 

"Loki," he said. "Let's say you're right. Even if you did give us the Casket, it might not work. But, Sigyn's right, too. We need to consider every option. We need a backup plan." He spread his hands. "There is, _literally_ , no place else we can go. And... don't take this the wrong way, but we beat you, and we sent the Chitauri home with a hell of a bloody nose. Even though you're a god, you're only one person."

"That is so," Loki said.

Stark laughed. "You took that a lot better than I expected."

Loki shrugged, his careless gesture belying the sick tightness in his stomach and chest. "The Avengers are formidable, and the armies of Midgard united would be a mighty force. You may well prevail." 

"But you won't help us," Fury said.

"No," Loki said.  "Not with that."

*** 


	7. Chapter 7

Loki stopped Sigyn just outside the briefing chamber. "I wish to speak with you."

"Very well," Sigyn said coolly.

"You remember where the lab is, right?" said Stark, as he stepped through the doorway of the briefing chamber. "Big concrete room on L-2?"

"We shall find it," Loki said.

Stark gave him a look that, while it was not precisely friendly, was not full of the loathing Loki was accustomed to seeing. 

"See you in a bit, then," he said, and headed off down the hallway.

Jane, Selvig and Darcy were still in the briefing chamber, Jane and Selvig with their heads bent together, discussing something in hushed, urgent voices. Selvig, who had his back to the door, shook his head.

Loki said to Sigyn. "Will you come with me?"

He led her across the hall to another open door. The small office within was empty. Loki closed the door behind Sigyn and, with a gesture, he blinded and deafened Fury's surveillance devices. Soldiers would come running soon, but until then, he and Sigyn could converse in private. Sigyn folded her arms across her chest. Her Midgardian garments made her no less lovely. 

"I already know what you intend to say," she said.

"I very much doubt that."

"Sigyn," she said, pitching her voice low, to imitate him. "Do not throw in your lot with these Midgardians." She strode across the room, then pivoted dramatically on her heel, sweeping an imaginary cape out of her way. Loki smiled in spite of himself. "Come with me to Jotunheim." She put her hands on her hips and added, "What you plan to do with me there, I can only imagine. Hide me somewhere out of your way, I'm sure."

"In fact," Loki replied, "I have an occupation for you. Duties to make use of your time, your wisdom, and your patience. Nothing truly worthy of you, to be sure. But it is the best I have to offer."

"And what is that, Loki?"

"Queen of Jotunheim."

Sigyn's eyes widened. Her mouth opened, and then she shut it again.

"I know what you feel for me," he said. "I see how you look at me, Sigyn."

Sigyn's cheeks flushed, and she lowered her lashes, once again folding her arms across herself.  After everything he had done t her, she still had sweetness enough to look embarrassed. He preferred her angry. This... oh, this was far more cruel. 

"I know you hate me," he told her bluntly. "How can I reproach you for it? You have every reason to."

Her eyes lifted to meet his. "Such an extravagant gesture, Loki. You need not make me your queen.  What is it you want me to do for you?"

"Stay," he said. "The Midgardians and I will find a way to stop the destruction of the realms. Or, we will not, and all of us will perish. Better that, than the worlds beyond the Bifrost." 

A frown creased her brow. Again, she studied his face, and what she was seeking, he could not guess. 

Then, with a gentleness that surprised him, Sigyn said, "Tell me the truth, Loki. When you fell from the Bifrost, was that just another one of your tricks? Did you laugh about it, later, to yourself?" 

"No," he said.  

She turned her back on him, facing the windows. The ocean shimmered deep blue in the morning sunlight, vanishing into a haze of distance. He thought of Gislavotn, and its endless sea of grasses underneath a darkening sky. Over the years, he'd lost track of the number of times he'd had to remind himself that he never loved her.

"I sought only death," he said. "But, there are worse things, Sigyn."

The door of the office opened. Loki recognized the tall, dark-haired female standing in the doorway. Maria Hill, Nick Fury's right hand. Two soldiers stood behind Hill, holding their weapons pointed at the floor, rather than at Loki.

"Mr. Laufeyson," Hill said.

"Agent Hill."

"Director Fury prefers to have no gaps in his surveillance network."

Loki gestured at the ceiling, unbinding the spell he'd woven. "Well, we can't have Director Fury inconvenienced can we?"

Agent Hill consulted the tablet computer in her hand. "Dr. Foster's team expects you and Ms. Freyrsdöttir in L-2." She gave Loki a look of polite loathing. "Do you need directions?"

***

Loki threw down the red marking pen in frustration. "That is not what I mean. Your language is barbarically imprecise."

Stark said, "English has more words than any other language on Midgard, so you're pretty much screwed."

"It is not a lack of vocabulary that is the issue. It is a lack of flexibility," Loki replied. "If perhaps you spoke a civilized tongue, such as Toltec or Xi-xia, we wouldn't have this problem. Even Sumerian would be an improvement."

Stark pushed back his chair, screeching the metal legs across the concrete floor. "Great. I'll just go take four years to achieve total fluency in fucking _Toltec_ , and I'll meet you back here."

"Maybe we should take a break," Jane suggested.

Stark glared at her.

Gazing calmly back at him, she scooped her hair into both hands, and twisted it up into a plastic clip. "We've been at this for five hours straight."

"I'm with Jane," said Selvig. "I could use a break."

"As could I," said Sigyn.

Stark flung himself back in his chair, and blew out a breath. "Yeah, okay." He shot Loki a narrow-eyed look. "How come you speak Sumerian or Toltec anyway? You're only one thousand and something."

"I speak two languages," Loki replied. "The High Speech, which is unfit for the ears of mortals, and the Low Speech, in which I can make myself understood to anyone. The more precise the language that _you_ understand, the greater your comprehension of what I say to you."

"Huh," said Stark.

"That's kind of baking my noodle, to be honest," Darcy said. 

She sat at the end of the work table furthest from the white board, swathed in Loki's long wool coat. Earlier in the afternoon, Loki had tossed it over the back of a chair. The L-2 lab was too warm for him, but Darcy had loudly declared that she was freezing to death. Munin perched on the edge of the desk, playing with a red elastic band stretched between one talon and his beak.

"Anybody want me to make a coffee run?" she added.

"You can only go as far as the commissary," said Stark. "I can suit up and fly to Starbucks."

Jane laughed. "The nearest Starbucks is about fifty miles from here."

"Your point being?"

"Our coffee would likely arrive frozen solid from the altitude," Loki said.

Stark replied, with no malice, "That shouldn't be a problem for you, right?"

"On the contrary. I prefer my coffee hot."

Stark, Jane and Darcy all laughed. Selvig smiled at his notes, and even Sigyn looked amused. She caught Loki's gaze for a moment, and then she looked away.

"I'll get us coffee," Selvig said, as he stood up. "I need to stretch my legs."

"Someone ought go with you," Jane said. "To help carry stuff."

Stark put his feet up on the work table. "Don't look at me."

Loki walked away from the table, toward the machine Stark had begun constructing. The device was inelegant. The computer interfaces were cumbersome. Mortals were surprisingly clever at times, agonizingly stupid at others. Sigyn's endless, easy patience with them was infuriating.  

"Wait," Darcy said, as Selvig and Jane moved toward the door. "What to you want me to do, while you're gone?"

Jane looked momentarily flummoxed. "Just..." She looked from Tony to Loki, then back to Darcy. "... try to stay out of trouble."

Stark tipped his chair backward, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Loki, I can't help but feel that Dr. Foster's comment might be alluding to the two of us."

"Well, _I'm_ offended." Darcy petted the alfin coat's soft drahagi wool as if it were a cat, and then she slipped her hand into the deep fur cuff of one sleeve. "It's not like I -- ow!"

She yanked her hand back, and scrambled up out of the chair, which fell over with a clatter. Something small and swift, graceful and gray, scuttled across the floor. Loki stepped toward the work-table and, as Stark and Sigyn leapt to their feet, Loki crushed the spider with his boot. He was loath to do it; but the visknafiri did not belong on Midgard.

Darcy stared at Loki, wide-eyed. "It -- it bit me."

"What the hell is that?" Stark demanded.

"A spider," Loki replied. "Native to Yggdrasil."

With a rustle of feathers, Munin took flight and landed on Loki's left shoulder, talons gripping painfully, then easing as the raven found its balance.

"A _poisonous_ spider?" Darcy turned pale as milk, her lips trembling.

Loki walked toward her. "You'd best sit down, Darcy."

"Am I going to die?"

He reached for her, and Stark stepped between them, shoving Loki's arm away. Munin squawked and flapped as Loki drew back.

"What did you do?" Stark snarled at him. "Fury fucking trusted you. Hell — _I_ was starting to trust you."

"I did not bring the visknafiri here on purpose," Loki replied. "It could just as easily have bitten me."

"Except for how it _didn't_ bite you."

"Loki lent me his coat in Kambrekk," Sigyn pointed out. "I had it in my room all last night. I gave it back to him this morning, and he hasn't been alone since then. Why would he risk his life following me through the Bifrost, only to endanger me now?"

Stark was still frowning, but he looked less angry now, and more concerned. "All right. Fine. It's a stowaway. What's it going to do to Darcy?"

"Yeah, let's focus on me for a change, why don't we?" Darcy clutched her bitten hand against her chest. Already, the visknafiri's venom had begun to spread filaments of pale, luminous white-violet from the flesh between her thumb and index finger, up toward her wrist.

"A visknafiri has never bitten a mortal, as far as I know," Loki replied. "And very few Asgardians."

"What does it do to an Asgardian?" Stark said. 

"It conveys visions. Sometimes."

"A ticket to trip-out city," Darcy said. Sweat beaded along her hairline. "Okay. I can deal with that."

"We'd better get you to medical," Stark said.

"Yeah," she said faintly. "Sounds like a plan."

Not waiting for an argument, Loki scooped Darcy into his arms; she weighed next to nothing. Munin fluttered again, and settled.

"Hey... hello," she said to him. "You're very extremely strong, aren't you?"

The SHIELD base was not large, but by the time they reached the healing room on L-5, three levels above the lab, shivers wracked Darcy's body. The sleeves of Loki's shirt were damp with her sweat, and her hair clung to her temples. She felt much too warm for a human. The violet-white of the visknafiri's venom had spread from beneath her shirt collar, up the side of her throat. Her eyes roamed everywhere, the pupils huge and dark, but Loki doubted she could see him, or Sigyn or Stark, or the brushed metal interior of the elevator.

The elevator opened onto another grim concrete hallway with lines of ductwork and pipes running along the ceiling, and L-5 stenciled in large red letters opposite the elevator doors. Two soldiers stationed outside the elevator snapped to attention, raising their weapons, but Stark strode out of the elevator, lifting a forefinger at them, as if in warning.

"Our orders..." said one of them, uncertainly.

"This way," Stark told Loki, heading around the corner to the left.

Loki followed Stark, Sigyn falling into step with him. 

"It's wrong," Darcy whispered. "You're wrong."

Stark glanced over his shoulder at her. "We're almost there, Darcy. Hang on."

Darcy grabbed the front of Loki's shirt, twisting her small fist in the black fabric. "Your shadow. Behind you."

Loki did not get the chance to ask her what she meant; Stark was half-running toward the Plexiglas doors of the healing hall, which slid open at his approach. The small room smelled like nothing Loki had ever smelled before: a combination of scents pungently sharp and strangely sweet. Bruce Banner jumped to his feet, dropping a paperback book, as Stark burst into the room; Loki faltered a step as his eyes met Banner's. Banner was a medical doctor, but obviously, the base must have its own medical staff. There was no reason for Banner's presence — except, of course, that Fury knew Loki would also be on the base.

Banner pointed to a narrow bed with a metal frame. "Put her down there."

Loki laid Darcy gently on the bed, then he reached up to pry her fingers away from his shirt-front. Gently, to avoid hurting her. Munin hopped from Loki's shoulder to the bed rail, where he began to pace back and forth, clicking and hissing.

"What happened?" Banner demanded.

Stark said, "You know how I said you'd be bored? Nothing but sprained ankles and paper cuts? We need to synthesize some antivenin."

_"Antivenin?"_

Darcy repeated in the same ragged, urgent whisper, "Loki. Your shadow."

Stark was saying to Banner. "The spider is still on the floor in L-5, so we can use that."

"What spider? Tony, what the hell is going on? SHIELD can't even get medical staff here from F— from the mainland for two days. Is this an epidemic?" 

"It's not an epidemic," Stark said, then gave Loki a hard look. "It's _not_ an epidemic, right?"

"It is not an epidemic," said Loki. "If there were more than one visknafiri — "

Darcy's hand clamped down on Loki's wrist. "You need to remember. Tell Sigyn. You brought your shadow with you."

He didn't get a chance to ask Darcy what she meant.

Banner grasped her by her chin. "Darcy. Look at me. Do you have any allergies to medication?"

Darcy twisted away from Banner, flailing at an invisible attacker. "No! Keep him away! Loki, keep him away!"

"She's on fire," Banner said. "We need to get this fever down, right away." He turned to Stark. "Tony, help me --"

Loki laid his hands flat on Darcy, one hand on her stomach and one on her shoulder. It took him far more concentration to call the ice with delicacy than with force. To form not a weapon nor a raging storm, but a lacework of frost over Darcy's clothing, that did not freeze her skin.

"Holy fuckballs," Stark murmured from the foot of the bed.

Darcy sighed, and relaxed onto the bed. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, then opened again. She shifted restlessly on the bed, her hands twisting at the comforter. "You guys don't mind if I throw up now, right? I mean, we're all friends here..."

"It's okay," said Banner, as he lifted her into a half-sitting position, so she wouldn't choke.  Fragments of ice flaked from her clothing. Stark and Sigyn moved away from the bed, but Loki hesitated.

M'okay," Darcy told him. "I'm all right. I got this now."

"Of that I have no doubt, Darcy Lewis." 

Darcy glanced down at the small metal dish Banner was holding for her. "Is that a _bedpan_?" 

"Well, where would you rather throw up?" Banner said patiently.

"Loki," Stark said, from the other side of the room.

He left Darcy's side, and walked over to where Stark and Sigyn were standing.

"What were you going to say before?" Stark asked Loki. "If there had been more than one spider?"

"We would know by now," Loki replied. "Someone else would have been bitten. The visknafiri choose those they wish to convey their sight upon."

Banner said, "How long does this… sight last? Typically."

"At most an hour or two, for an Asgardian," Loki replied. "But, for a mortal, I cannot say."

"Half an hour?" Darcy suggested.

The Plexiglas doors swept open, and Jane came running in, followed by Selvig.

"Darcy!" she exclaimed. "Oh no! Oh my God! What happened?"

Darcy sagged back onto the bed, a fever flush still burning in her cheeks. "Hey, guys. Guess what? I'm psychic now." 

"How about some Powerball numbers?" said Stark.

Loki withdrew. He was not needed here. He would be of more use if he returned to the lab on L-2, and continued his work. He walked out of the healing room; the Plexiglas doors slid open for him obligingly, and closed in his wake. He took a deep breath, and released it slowly. Disquiet trembled along the connection between him and the Casket, a tense-wound string plucked and vibrating once again. Mortals. The more of them he spoke to and spent time among, the less he could dismiss them as a brutish swarm, breeding and feeding and overrunning their little worlds. He could not help but think now of every mortal life he had so casually taken as a Brisenndyr or a Tortrigg, a Darcy Lewis or a Tony Stark.

The door of the healing room whooshed open again and Sigyn walked out, carrying Munin on her arm. She halted a few paces from Loki, her attention shifting past him to the wall of the corridor behind him. Loki looked over his shoulder. The concrete to either side of him was speckled and starred with frost. He stepped away from the wall.

"What are you doing with Lady Sigyn?" he asked Munin.

"He wished me to bring him to you," Sigyn replied.

"And what do you want of me?" Loki reached for the raven. "I haven't got any pastries to feed you."

Sigyn extended her arm as well; as the raven walked down it, her fingertips brushed Loki's. Munin flapped and landed on Loki's elbow, and then walked up to Loki's shoulder.

"You know more of the visknafiri than I," Sigyn said. "Will Darcy die of its bite?"

"I think not. But the fault will be mine, if she does."

Sigyn surprised him by laughing softly. "You never used to be so quick to take blame. Quite the opposite."

He shrugged. "Once you've tried to decimate a realm or two, it changes your perspective."

"This isn't your fault, Loki."

He didn't reply. Munin shifted from foot to foot on Loki's shoulder, his wing feathers brushing Loki's neck. The elevator growled open, and then scraped closed once more. Loki expected it would be Fury or Hill. He drew his shoulders back; Munin fluttered, and resettled himself with a low croak. It was Fury's assistant, Melanie, intent on the screen of her tablet. She did not so much as glance over at Loki and Sigyn, as she hurried past the intersection of the corridors.

"Will you come with me to Jotunheim?" Loki asked her.

"No," she said.

"Sigyn, I will give you anything you desire. Gems. Furs --"

Her mouth flattened in annoyance.

"-- the crown of Jotunheim," he continued. _The king of Jotunheim. My heart. Myself. Take me._ "Anything in my power to give you."

"The truth?" she said.

"Yes," he answered. "Even that."

She clicked her tongue. "What happened to you, Loki? You used to be so shrewd at bargaining. Always getting exactly what you wanted, and always at as little cost you as possible."

Exasperated, Loki retorted, "You have already cost me _everything,_ Sigyn _;_  how can you not see that I love you?"

Surprise and confusion crossed her face in swift succession, and then she drew her shoulders back, as if she'd come to a decision. Those words never should have been spoken aloud. He knew that. They could do nothing except hurt her. But they could not be unspoken now. 

"You asked me for the truth," he said harshly.

The doors of the healing room opened, and Erik Selvig stepped out. Selvig's eyes met Loki's; Selvig was on the verge of walking away, when Loki hailed him. "Erik Selvig."

Selvig turned back, eyes narrowed.

"How fares Darcy?" Loki asked.

"A little better," Selvig said warily, looking from Loki to Sigyn.

"I am glad to hear it," Sigyn replied. "You will pardon me, please." 

She walked away from them, toward the elevator. Loki would much rather have continued speaking with her. Even to have her strike him with one verbal dagger after another, was preferable to a conversation with Selvig. 

But, he turned to Selvig. "I have words to say to you, Erik Selvig, if you would hear them."

***


	8. Chapter 8

Stark turned away from the holographic display of the Nine Realms shimmering in the air between him and Sigyn. "Darcy still sleeping?"

Loki shook his head, and walked across the L-2 lab to join Stark and Sigyn at the work station. They were alone in the lab. Jane Foster and her team were still in the healing room, of course, but there were no other technicians working, nor agents standing watch. Only the soldiers outside in the hallway, and a closed door between the lab and them.

"She has awakened," Loki said. "She seems less fevered."

Munin had stayed with Loki until he walked into the healing room, and then the raven had taken wing and flapped over to settle on the rail of Darcy's bed.

"That sounds like better," said Stark.

"Perhaps," Loki replied. 

Stark smirked a bit. "Did she give you any more psychic predictions?"

Loki wondered where Stark was leading him with this line of apparently innocuous conversation.

"Nothing I understand now," he replied. "But, that is the way of oracles, is it not?"

"I wouldn't know," said Stark. "We don't have many oracles around here. By the way, while you were gone, Sigyn was telling me all about how you two used to be all hot and heavy, back in the day."

Sigyn uttered a squawk of outrage. "I told you only that Loki and I were once betrothed."

With a swipe of his hand, Stark cleared the holographic display. "Also, I'm pretty sure I've almost figured out how to boost the range of the Starkgate. If I can get it calibrated right, I can open a gateway outside of this universe — " He raised a hand, and clarified, "— beyond the Bifrost."

Loki frowned. "What of Jane's plan to close the rift?"

"My plan is Plan B.  Jane's plan is still Plan A."

"I haven't changed my mind about the Casket."

Sigyn shook her head. "You needn't give the Casket to the Midgardians."

"It is not powerful enough, then," Loki said. "Unfortunate for you."

"Careful, Loki," Stark warned him in a sing-song voice. "That _almost_ sounded like  sympathy."

"Midgard is not my realm."

"Still butthurt over that, huh?"

Loki grinned. English was such a marvelous, _vivid_ language. Stark looked as though he'd expected his remark to elicit an entirely different reaction.

"I did not anticipate failing," Loki conceded. "I suppose I am still somewhat... resentful. However, I have a realm of my own to look after, and it is not Midgard." He paused, then added coolly, "You had your chance."

Stark laughed. "I never pegged you for a guy who gave a shit about anything except himself, let alone a bunch of us puny mortals. I'd say no offense, but we both know I'm right."

Loki tilted his head. He was not offended.

"And the way you look now, you know, jotun and all... Sigyn and I started bouncing ideas around. I had no idea the jotuns — "

 _"Jotunar,"_ Sigyn corrected him.

"Right. Sorry. The _jotunar_ nearly conquered most of the Nine Realms a thousand years ago, before Odin took the Casket away from them. And how, without the Casket, the jotunar weren't much of a threat to anyone."

"I have already explained to Director Fury that I have no wish for war with Midgard."

Stark flapped his hands. "No, no. That's not what I'm getting at. Thor told me you remade your entire realm. That's why it's the youngest of all nine. You've joined yourself with the Casket, so you're not three different things anymore: you, your realm, and the Casket. You're one symbiotic system."

Every ettin and every alfin in Jotunheim already knew this to be true, yet Loki felt as though Stark had intruded upon something intensely private.

Stark took his silence correctly, as assent. "Thor swore to me you'd changed, and I didn't believe him. But, you have. You actually have. You're not..." Stark waved a hand near his temple. "I mean — you are actually a _reasonable person._ Which is great. We're all thrilled to meet the new you. Two thumbs up."

Loki shifted irritably. "I do not see how any of this is relevant."

"Don't you? The Casket won't work for us. It won't work at all, even if you did give it to us. But you _plus_  the Casket, that's a shitload of power. _Sentient_ power. We can do more than just fumble around and try to work the math and hope we find the source of the rift somewhere in our universe, before we're all destroyed. We can go out and look for it. _You_ can find it. And close it."

"You intend to use _me_ to power Selvig's machine?"

Stark shook his head. "Jane's team doesn't know any of this yet. Fury doesn't know either. It's just you, me, Sigyn, and four concrete walls. It's just me, asking you to help us."

Loki glanced at one of the security cameras mounted in a corner of the lab. It was neither small nor discreet. 

"I might have introduced a teensy malware program into the base's mainframe." Stark pulled his phone out of his pocket and consulted the screen. "It'll take Tech Ops about, oh… five more minutes to fix it." He put his phone back in his pocket. "If you're going to escape, please -- as a personal favor to me -- make it look good. Whammy me with a spell or something."

Loki frowned. "You would step aside and let me escape? What trickery is this?"

"I don't do tricks. Tomfoolery, shenanigans, monkeyshines… no tricks."

"I am your enemy. In case you had forgotten."

"No," Stark said. "You're not." He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing away from Loki. "Listen... Fury is a big believer in second chances. None of us would be here, otherwise. And I'm pretty sure I figured out why you…" He glanced at Sigyn. "I don't hate you anymore. Basically. Not completely, anyway. For what it's worth."

Loki wondered what Stark had been about to say; the man didn't usually stop himself from speaking his mind.

"I, too, find you not entirely loathsome," Loki said.

Stark laughed, then he shook his head. "I don't think Fury would try and force your hand. But, Fury doesn't speak for this planet." He cocked a thumb at the side of the lab farthest from his Starkgate. "I'm gonna go over there and do some calculations. With my back turned. "

Loki glanced at Sigyn, and raised an eyebrow.

She smiled gravely. "We do not belong here, Loki. Mortal lives are brief, and their empires will crumble, with or without this dark corruption."

"You speak like an Asgardian. Is it not the Vanir way to walk among mortals?"

"Vanaheim is no more." She held his gaze in hers. "Even if the Midgardians cannot open a passage to the worlds beyond the Bifrost, there must be some secret path you know."

He said softly, "Sigyn, I cannot."

"You promised me anything I desired, Loki."

"I promised you anything in my power to give you. I also promised to protect my realm."

"So, you love Jotunheim more than you love me."

"Jotunheim needs me," Loki said. "You do not."  

He turned away from her, looking across the lab to where Stark stood, as promised, with his back to them, bringing another large computer display to flickering life with a few taps on a keyboard. 

"Tony Stark," Loki said. 

Stark's shoulders rose. He turned slowly to face Loki. 

"I will help you."

A grin broke across Stark's face, and he strode quickly across the lab toward them, and clamped both hands on Loki's upper arms, giving Loki a shake. "Loki, you big beautiful, blue — " He glanced past Loki. "What are _you_ smiling at?"

"I?" Sigyn said. "Not a thing."

Loki looked over his shoulder, but Sigyn's face was all innocent surprise. 

Stark frowned at her, then turned his attention to Loki once more. "We're gonna have to bring the whole team to Jotunheim. Me. Jane. Selvig. Darcy, maybe. If she can. The techs. All the equipment. And we need to hook the Casket to the machine. Your jotunar gonna be okay with that?"

"My jotunar will be 'okay' with saving their realm."

Stark opened his mouth to reply, but he didn't get the chance. The door of the lab swished open, and Jane came running in, her face pale and shocked. Fear pierced Loki's heart; not fear for himself, but for Darcy.

"South America," Jane said. "Lafonia — in the Falkland Islands..." She gasped a small, hysterical laugh. "It's raining mercury."

"Oh God," Stark said. "It's here."

Sigyn rose to her feet. "Midgard is a young realm. Very alive. Very bright."

Jane blinked rapidly, and then she drew herself up. "All right. Okay. We just need to finish the machine — "

"Jane," said Stark.

"Work the numbers. Find the rift. Amplify the scepter. We can stop this thing. We — "

 _"Jane,"_ Stark overrode her.

She faced him, brown eyes fierce and burning.

"It's gonna be okay," he said. "We've got a plan."

***

Loki stepped from the Starkgate into Jotunheim. Icy wind embraced him, the Casket's sweet, piercing song filled him, and he breathed deep, inhaling the smell of his realm. Salt and stone. Musty lichen and sharp evergreen. A faint whiff of dung and hot-musky grimulf from the pens behind the palace. At long last. Home.

He was not alone on the windswept rock plateau. Gauthild met him with a troop of her ettin guard. Several of the soldiers carried Chitauri staff weapons, and the others held ice swords. Gauthild wore one of her more formal ettin kilts: a long swath of snowy white fabric, elaborately pleated and twisted this way and that around her body. To this she had added her armor, embedded in thin plates of ice over her shoulders and arms. Her bronze battle helm framed her eyes in such a way that it looked like a perpetual scowl.

She bowed to him. "Majesty. Welcome home. The Allfather's raven carried word of your coming." She glanced up at the rocky crag where Munin had perched. Her eyes narrowed. "And of your bringing… others."

"Guests, Gauthild."

"Yes sire," she answered unhappily.

Loki stepped away from the Starkgate. The jotunar would have to accustom themselves to the presence of outworlders. Jotunheim had been the dark, forbidden realm for too long. The energy in the gateway surged, the rippling blue light brightened, and Sigyn stepped through. Her eyes widened as she took in the group of armored ettin, but when her gaze found Loki, she smiled. He knew not what had changed between them, but something obviously had. The Casket rushed to welcome Sigyn in a gust of wind glittering with flecks of ice. She shivered.

Loki turned to introduce her to Gauthild. "Lady Sigyn Freyrsdöttir of Vanaheim. Gauthild, daughter of Ulfrunn, my chief councilor."

Sigyn curtsied. Gauthild knelt, as did her guards, fists pressed to their hearts, but they leapt to their feet as the gateway flared again, and Barton stepped through, followed by Romanov. Romanov's red hair was a bright banner lifted by the chilly wind, the color startling against the sheer escarpments of gray and black rock. Several of the ettin guards raised their weapons, and Loki lifted a hand. At his gesture, they drew back.

The two SHIELD agents halted, looking up at the towering ettin surrounding them, just as Sigyn had done. Romanov glanced at Loki. She nodded to Gauthild, who returned the greeting. Romanov moved away from the portal, Barton following her. Jane and Darcy stepped through next, both carrying cases of equipment. Darcy had insisted she was well enough to accompany the science team; no way was she bailing on her chance to visit an alien planet. Sigyn had made the pointless effort of explaining to Darcy that Jotunheim was, in fact, Midgard's nearest neighbor among the worlds of Yggdrasil, but this distinction seemed entirely lost upon Darcy. Perhaps it was only the cold air pinkening Darcy's cheeks that lent her an illusion of health, but she looked better than she had in the healing room on the SHIELD base. Munin took wing from his perch and swooped down, landing on her shoulder. Darcy barely noticed; she stared in slack-jawed astonishment at the ettin towering over her.

Gauthild said in a low grumble, "How many of these Midgardians are we to expect, sire?"

"As many Midgardians as I care to invite," Loki told her.

Gauthild's scowl deepened, but she bent her head in assent.

Stark and Selvig arrived, carrying the largest equipment case between them. Loki had asked Fury that the scientific party be a small one; Fury agreed. Loki wanted no soldiers, no SHIELD agents, no Avengers. He and Fury compromised on five: Barton, Romanov, Tony Stark, and the two soldiers who followed the science team through the portal, guns pointed at the ground. The Midgardians shivered in their SHIELD-issued garments; only Romanov looked comfortable, but even she would grow cold before long. Behind them, the Starkgate flickered out of existence.

Stark pulled off his dark glasses, and craned his neck to look up at one of Gauthild's guards. "Hey there.  My name's Tony. What's yours?"

Hrokkvir thumped his chest with one gigantic fist. "Hrokkvir. Son of Hrönn."

"Nice to meet you, Hrokkvir," said Tony.

"Tony of Midgard," Hrokkvir replied with a cautious nod. "Greetings."

Loki gestured to Gauthild. "Have your soldiers take the equipment, and bring it to Koninghöll."

Gauthild nodded, looking less unhappy now that she had something to do. "Yes, sire."

Loki added, "And, Gauthild -- in the future, I will be displeased if I see no alfin in the ranks of your soldiers. I need not remind you that your king is an alfin."

"No, majesty," Gauthild replied. "It shall be as you say."

***

Loki felt much more himself. He had not had time to bathe, but he had changed his clothing. He no longer stank of ash and mud, though all his magic could not banish the smells of Kambrekk from his imagination.

He pulled a dark gray coat off of the blunted-tusk hanging hook where it hung next to his others. He had never seen it before. Breyrkekolf must have brought it to Loki's chambers while he was away. It had been embroidered with the sleek, geometric motifs that the ettin favored, rather than the elaborate, intertwining alfin designs that adorned most of his garments. And the designs around the shoulders and cuffs had been stitched in ochre and blue threads, rather than the traditional alfin black. A touch to the coat sleeve revealed Vikunnr, the alfin who had tailored Loki's now-ruined violet coat, had made this garment for Loki as well. It wasn't Vikunnr's daughter Óneisi who had stitched the embroidery, but instead another pair of skillful hands: Yutta's. 

The Midgardians and the jotunar, meanwhile, had been busy in the great hall of the palace. They'd moved a long stone table into the hall, and cluttered it with laptop computers, equipment, and tools. Snaking tangles of wire and cable ran across the stone floor between the Casket's pedestal, and Selvig's modified Tesseract machine, a hybrid of Chitauri and Midgardian tech. In pieces, the machine had packed easily in the large metal case that Stark and Selvig had carried through the Starkgate. But, the Casket, being much larger than the Tesseract, was too big and too heavy to fit inside it.

Sitting cross-legged on the stone floor, Jane hunched over a laptop, fingers hammering the keys. Selvig worked nearby, and Stark had goggles pulled down over his eyes, as he welded part of Selvig's device. Sparks flew, and the ettin guards in the hall watched with nervous mistrust. But, at the far end of the stone table, Sigyn, Darcy and the Brinjolf twins were clustered close together, as Darcy raised her phone in front of them.

"Okay -- now smile!" she exclaimed.

Sigyn caught sight of Loki, and rose to her feet, and crossed the hall to him. She no longer wore the clothing she'd been given at the SHIELD base. Instead, she was dressed in alfin fashion: a wool jacket and long, full skirts of pale blue-lilac that set off her golden skin. Under the hem of her skirts, the embroidered cuffs of a pair of darker blue leggings peeked out over the tops of her soft, cream-colored wool-felt boots. The clothing might be Brisenndyr's. She and Sigyn were almost the same size, though Brisenndyr stood a little taller. Sigyn looked more at ease in alfin clothing than she had in the fatigues and the shapeless SHIELD tunic. She looked like she belonged in Jotunheim.

Loki stopped that line of thought before it went any further. As always, his yearning for her rippled back at him from the Casket. If she would stay with him in Jotunheim, he would give her everything he had to give her, and gladly. But, he knew he could not make her happy.

Jane glanced up from her laptop as Loki approached and, as Selvig stepped around the machine, she climbed to her feet.

Selvig brushed his fingers over the one of the steel struts on the machine. The struts stood open and empty, waiting for the Tesseract to rest in their grip, like a gigantic gem in a setting. Except it would not be the Tesseract this time. It would be him.

"We're nearly ready," Selvig said.

"What of the rift itself?" Loki asked him. Have you solved the problem of how to seal it, assuming I can lure the corruption through it?"

Jane tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear and answered for Selvig. "We're hoping you can accomplish that as well. You and the Casket together."

"So much of your plan rests on hope, Jane Foster."

She met Loki's gaze; her brown eyes intent on his face, the shrewdness of her gaze disconcerting in such a delicate face. Loki had come to understand why Thor esteemed her so highly.

She said, "My plan rests on _you_ , Loki of Jotunheim."

He laughed softly. "Even at this late date, you fear I shall betray you?"

"No," Jane said. "It's not that." She glanced past Loki, to Sigyn, then back at him.

In the corner of his eye, Loki saw Stark cease welding, and push his goggles to the top of his head.

Selvig said, "We could be sending you to your death."

Loki shrugged. "If I fail, you will not have long to mourn me."

Selvig snorted.

"Even if you succeed, you may still die," Jane said. "There's a point at which the calculations become..." She waved one hand.

"Magic," Loki said. 

Jane nodded. Stark made a face at the word "magic," but he said nothing.

"Hope for me to meet a good death, Jane. That is all you need hope for." Loki glanced over at the machine, narrowing his eyes. "How soon until your preparations are finished?"

Jane blinked up at him. "Soon. A few hours."

"Very well. I must prepare myself. Dark energy is the Allfather's domain, not mine, and I am nowhere near his equal. Summon me when all is in readiness."

"Hey, don't sell yourself short," Stark said.

Loki didn't reply. He was not undervaluing his own magical skills. He had worked hard to hone them, and they were formidable. Even more so when combined with the power of the Casket. He would do his best; he could do nothing less. But his chances of succeeding were infinitesimally small. He crossed the great hall, and sought the small anteroom nearby. Thor had embraced him here, and called him brother, and Thor's presence still lingered here. Patterns of sunlight and shadow scattered across the floor through the latticework cut into the wall, between the anteroom's two narrow windows. The room was still empty of furnishings. Loki preferred it that way. A soft footfall in the doorway betrayed Sigyn's presence.

"I cannot concentrate while you are here," Loki said.

"I would speak with you now. While we still have time."

He turned to face her. "What is it you wish to speak of?"

Sigyn took a slow breath, and then released it.  Then she walked into the anteroom. "These past days, I have wondered much. Questioned much."

He could guess what she wished to know. Why he had thrown in his lot with the Chitauri. Why he had slaughtered countless mortals, why Thor had dragged him back to Asgard, muzzled and in chains. Why he was no longer the Loki she had known so long ago. 

"I fell," he said. "For a long while, until at last there was blinding light, and burning pain. I thought the chaos would tear me to pieces, flesh and spirit both. I hoped it would. But it did not. I awoke far from the lands I knew. I couldn't sense Yggdrasil. I was alone, and I wandered. I know not for how long. Centuries, it seemed." 

He ran his fingers along the polished stone of the windowsill. The narrow window looked out upon the front of the palace. Broken columns and fragments of stone still studded the courtyard, as they had ever since his arrival. Breyrkekolf had asked Loki once if he would like workmen to remove them, but Loki had refused. They were a reminder of the devastation wrought by the Bifrost. Now, the skulls of Chitauri soldiers adorned the blocks and shattered columns. They gleamed white against the dark stone, sparkling with a sheen of ice.

He said, "I had never seen one of the Chitauri's kind, and of course, they had never seen an Asgardian. The Chitauri are not like the Midgardians. They don't want to make new friends. They are not even like my jotunar, suspicious of strangers, but preferring peace. The Chitauri cannot abide a mystery. Of any sort. They took me with them to their homeworld, and they imprisoned me."

Sigyn's soft footfalls crossed the stone floor behind him. Just as Thor had done. He felt her hand on his arm.

"They tortured me," he said. He had thought the words would not come, but they did, one after another. "I swore to myself I would never give them the satisfaction of a scream. When I broke that vow, I swore I would never weep. Then I swore I would never beg them to stop."

"Oh," she said. "Oh, my Loki."

He reached over, and laid his free hand on top of hers. She did not flinch or shrink away, though his touch must have chilled her.

"When they had broken me," he said, "like a beast to their yoke, their leader took me to his master, Thanos, who persuaded me, with a great deal of flattery, to undertake the journey to Midgard, and to fetch him the Tesseract. In return, Thanos offered me Midgard. He compelled the Chitauri leader, and all his army, to follow my commands. If I failed, Thanos promised he would give me back to the Chitauri."

"He gave you no choice," Sigyn said. 

Loki laughed softly. "At first, that didn't matter. I had not a doubt in my mind that I would succeed.  But, as the Midgardians proved more and more troublesome, I began to question everything. Even my own desire to rule." He shrugged. "You know the rest. The Avengers defeated me."

"But," she said, "what of Thanos?"

"My jotunar defeated the Chitauri, when they tried to invade Jotunheim. I slew their leader. Perhaps, without the Tesseract, and with the Chitauri forces so badly crippled, Thanos can't reach me here. But, beyond the Nine Realms, his power is great. Greater even than the Allfather's. That's what you wished to know, is it not?"

Sigyn was silent a moment, then she replied, "Yes. Thank you, Loki. For telling me."

"I promised you the truth," he said. 

She sighed. "I wondered why Thor forgave you so easily."

Loki turned abruptly to face her. "Thor does not know. You must never tell him. Swear it to me, Sigyn."

"I swear it," she said. "But, Loki…"

Loki caught Sigyn's hands in his. "Thor nearly started a war with Jotunheim, when two of Laufey's soldiers interrupted his coronation. I don't care to imagine what Thor might attempt, if he ever discovers what Thanos and the Chitauri did to me."

Sigyn released one of his hands, turned the other over in hers, and traced her fingers across his palm. His heartbeat jolted.

"I love you, Loki. I always have; you know I have."

"In fact," Loki said quietly, "I was not aware of that, before just now."

His heart had begun to hammer swift and hard in his ears, and when Sigyn glanced up at him, surprised and amused, he wondered if it was because she could hear it. 

"How could I not?" she said.

"How  _could_  you?" he countered.

"You speak so fiercely of your people." She bent her head once more, her soft touch exploring his fingers, his palm, his wrist beneath the sleeve of his coat. A shiver raced through him; her touch was exquisite. She added, "You say you love me --"

"I do," Loki protested. "I do love you."

"-- and yet you choose to protect the Nine Realms, rather than go with me to the worlds beyond the Bifrost."

"I chose Jotunheim. The other eight realms can burn, for all I care." He did not mean that, not quite, and Sigyn probably knew it.

"Even so," she said complacently.  "If neither of us dies, I want us to live a long time here, and be happy."

"Happy," Loki repeated. "You would be happy in Jotunheim?"

"You are happy here. Are you not?"

In Jotunheim, Loki had felt, for the first time in a long while, that he belonged somewhere. He had a realm and a people to care for. He had not been bored. Nor had he been discontent. But whether he ruled mercilessly or he ruled wisely, he knew that to be a god ruling mortals was to be alone.

"I am not  _unhappy_ ," he said, finally.

Sigyn lifted her arms, and slipped them around his neck. He felt a gentle tug at the nape of his neck, urging him to bend his head, and he complied.

"Loki," she said. "Come back to me."

She kissed him. Heat blossomed in his chest, streaking downward, and before he realized what he was doing, his mouth opened to meet hers, his arms locked tightly around her, to pull her closer to him. Even as the Casket twined itself from him to her and back again, enmeshing them, Loki told himself he would not be conquered by one kiss. Not even by her kiss. But, she was warm; she was so warm, and her kiss so sweet, so hungry and so true, that he let last of his defenses fall, and he surrendered.

***


	9. Chapter 9

Loki returned to the great hall, after meditating for an hour.  Though Sigyn had managed to distract him even while absent, he had put her from his mind at last, and centered himself.  He was now intensely aware of his realm, and of the darkness at its edges, ravenous and eager to consume Jotunheim as it had Vanaheim.  

He had commanded that everyone leave the great hall, save Jane Foster and her team. Sigyn refused to leave, Stark insisted that she was a _crucial_ component, and Loki hadn't the heart to insist.

The Casket shimmered and swirled on its pedestal. At the other end of a trailing line of cables, Selvig's machine stood in readiness. The cables themselves lay on the floor. None of the Midgardians could touch the Casket, and live.

Though the Casket sang for Loki's attention, Loki sought Sigyn first. She stood by the long stone table, with its litter of metal crates, piles of papers held down by laptop computers, and tangles of wires.

But, Darcy stepped into his path, lifting a hand to halt him. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, but her eyes were shadowed. Faint traceries of the visknafiri's venom still marked her skin. She never should have come to Jotunheim. Jane should have insisted Darcy remain on Midgard, in the healing room at the SHIELD base. Munin perched on her shoulder.

"Loki." Her voice was low and urgent, her eyes so wide that only a thin rim of blue showed around their edges. "Don't forget. Tell Sigyn that your shadow…"

She closed her eyes, and swayed on her feet. Loki reached out a hand to steady her, and Munin flapped his wings to keep his balance.

"I'm okay," Darcy said. "It's just that I can't..." She pressed a hand to her temple, and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Do not trouble yourself so, Darcy," Loki told her. "I shall heed your warning."

"You won't," Darcy insisted. "I know you won't, and I still have to warn you, and none of this makes any sense.  I feel like I'm going crazy."

"Darcy," he said. "The visknafiri chose you to bite. It chose you to see what you've seen. It is a great honor. When the time is right, I will understand your message.

Darcy nodded, but she still looked pale and worried, huddled in her oversized, SHIELD-issue coat. "If you say so. Good luck, Loki."

Loki smiled. "I _do_ say so, Darcy. And thank you."

He walked to where Sigyn stood, caught her hand in his, lifted it and kissed it.

Her fingers tightened around his. "What troubles Darcy?"

He knew that wasn't what Sigyn wanted to ask him, but he answered, "I am to give you a warning, about leaving my shadow behind me. Darcy said I would forget."

"Yet, you haven't."

He shrugged. "There must be more I am to learn later."

"Therefore..." Sigyn laid a hand on his chest. "You must come back to me, Loki, so you can forget to tell me what you've learned."

Loki smiled, and cupped her chin in his hand, leaned down, and he kissed her lips, stealing a taste of her sweetness. He drew back, then touched her cheek and turned away, walking over to Selvig's machine. Jane and Selvig were polite enough to pretend they hadn't been staring, but Stark smirked at him.

"Be a shame for you to die, now that you've got everything worked out," he observed.

Loki hardly thought he and Sigyn had everything worked out, but he agreed, "Yes, it would."

Stark handed him the Chitauri signal device he'd modified. "Here. When you've found the rift, push the button. Just like before. We'll try to open the Starkgate." He glanced away from Loki, at the machine. "Jane's done her best with the calculations, but…"

Loki tucked the signal device underneath his coat. He'd considered vanishing it into the same pocket of null-space where he kept his daggers, but he had no idea how his magic would work, or even _if_ it would work, once Selvig's machine had sent him to seek the rift.

"I understand," he said to Stark. "No guarantees."

Stark blew out a breath, and then met Loki's gaze, and extended his hand. "Yeah. Good luck, man."

Loki clasped Stark's hand. He didn't point out that technically, he was not a man; he understood Stark had just called him a friend. Instead, he turned quickly to Jane.

"Jane Foster," he said. "Tell me what I must do now."

Jane pointed to the cable on the floor. "Grab that," she said. "Touch the Casket. You're what completes the circuit. Let me know when you're ready, and we'll flip the switch."

"Simple enough," Loki said.

Selvig lifted the coil of cables bound with electrical tape from the floor, as Loki walked over to the Casket. He took the cables from Selvig, then set his free hand on the Casket. As its song wrapped around him, and its blue glow filled his vision, Loki said, "I'm ready."

Jane gave him a thumbs-up. Power rushed through Loki. The green-black coil of Chitauri power, the oil and metallic taste of the Midgardian technology, the needle-sharp singing of the Casket, collided and channeled into one surging current. The great hall of the palace vanished. The blue fire of the Casket streamed around him, shot through with blackness. Then everything was blackness. Energy swept around him, raging and raw as when he'd first traveled from the Chitauri homeworld to Midgard.

Selvig's machine spat him out. He tucked his body; his flight was a short one, and he landed on hard stone, rolled, and sprang upto a crouch, blinking in blackness so deep it felt solid. Chilly stone under his fingertips. He skimmed his hand foward, exploring. The stone was worked smooth, cut in regular squares, and fitted tightly together. It felt as though he hadn't left the great hall. But, the stone gave up no images, no impression of itself.

The Casket's power still sang inside his head. but, it was no longer coiled around him, instead streaming outward in all directions, as if seeking the rift. Loki couldn't feel the rift either, and that made no sense. He knew the Allfather's magic. It had created him. He had lived in its shadow for most of his life. The wound it had left in the fabric of reality should have been instantly recognizable.

Loki swore under his breath. If there was no rift, then the corruption must be everywhere, seeping into the nine realms like blood through a piece of cloth. There was no direction to aim Selvig's machine. Selvig's machine would burn out, sooner or later. Even Chitauri technology couldn't contain the Casket's power for very long, and once it had failed, Loki would not be able to hold the Casket here... wherever _here_ was. He might not even be able to follow the Casket home. Already, the Casket's energy was flowing back to surround Loki, brightening his surroundings.

This was Koninghöll. Some version of its great hall. Perhaps this was only his mind's way to make sense of where he truly was. The vast stone chamber stood abandoned, and crumbling to ruin -- even more so than usual. When Loki looked toward the colonnade that should have opened to the courtyard, he saw instead a landscape littered with black, volcanic rocks, and stars arranged in alien constellations he knew very well. The Chitauri homeworld.

He would be calm, he told himself. He would not fear.  

A rushing whisper rose from the darkness in the great hall, scattering into wind and footsteps, indistinct, mingled voices, and the hum of Selvig's machine. An echo of the Casket's song threaded back to Loki, doubling discordantly in his head. Through a shifting veil of darkness, he beheld Jane, Selvig and Stark gathered around…him. Another Loki, like the doubles he cast of himself. It stood with its back to Loki, clad in Loki's green and gold Asgardian armor. Sigyn ran to it, and threw her arms around its neck. She spoke to it, but Loki could not hear her voice.

Only Darcy did not approach it. She stood behind the stone table, her arms wrapped around herself. Munin perched on her shoulder, wings spread, and neck feathers standing up.

As if the double sensed him, it turned to look. Loki flinched in startled horror; the double's eyes were pools of glistening black, sunk in deep sockets. Its skin was not the dusky blue of jotun flesh, nor was it pale as Loki's had once been. It was the bloodless white of a corpse, spiderwebbed with dark veins, or cracks. Its lips curved and it smiled at Loki. With Sigyn's soft arms around its neck, it smiled at him.

Its putrescence crawled over his skin, its charnel stink roiled around him. He felt its insatiable greed and its malevolence. The bright shine of the Casket had lured the corruption here, exactly as Jane had planned.

His mind had created this place, and therefore he knew where he needed to be. It was not here in the great hall of the palace. He headed past the stone pedestal that should have held the Casket, through the colonnade, and to the balcony. Behind him, whispers swelled from the shadows, but he ignored them as he hastened down the steps to the wasteland of black rock.

If there was no rift in reality, no wound through which the darkness poured, then he would make one. He would find the thing's heart, and he would drive a blade into it.

The pure stream of the Casket beat at his back like a current, flowing past him, through him, beyond him into the shattered landscape of the Chitauri homeworld. Then it faltered and ebbed, dying like a candle in a puddle of wax, and it was gone. Loki stopped walking. Had Jane shut off the machine, or had it burned itself out? He reached for the Casket with his mind, for the thread of silvery song, groping blindly. Nothing. Darkness and silence. He was alone, as he had been after his fall from the Bifrost.

Or, was this too an illusion?

With no way to be certain, he had no choice but to keep walking, picking his way across the treacherous terrain pitted with holes, crisscrossed by narrow crevasses.  He was not sure when he became aware that he was no longer alone. Something paced him, just outside his peripheral vision. It pressed against the back of his neck like an unblinking stare. His mind gave it the face of the Loki-thing, the nothing behind its eyes, the corpse-white skin veined in black.

 _Your shadow,_ Darcy had said. _Behind you._

He turned. The double stood directly behind him. It was not smiling now. Loki called a dagger, but his hand remained empty. The double smiled. It did nothing else, simply stood there. He didn't ask it what it wanted; he already knew. He didn't like to turn his back on the thing, but he also did not care to stand here for an eternity, staring it down.

He continued to walk. It followed him, silently.  Towers rose on the horizon, unfolding like gigantic flowers of spikes and scales. The Chitauri base. Loki heart began to pound. He remembered vividly the first time he had seen those towers. How glad he had been to see something, _anything,_ other than endless rock and dust.

A hand clamped on his arm, pale and cold through the sleeve of his coat, cold even to him. Loki attempted to pull free, but the double held fast. Its black eyes were wide. It was afraid, he realized, even as a chill caressed his own spine.

"So, I am correct," he said. "The Chitauri base is where I must go."

The double's face contorted in anger. It let go of him, and stepped back, and the Chitauri scepter materialized in its hand.

"You're not very good at this," Loki pointed out.

It swept the scepter at him, swift as an arrow, striking him in the center of the chest. Loki fell, bracing himself for sharp rocks, but a surface hard and flat and cold struck him instead. The light behind his double bloomed painfully bright. The double shrank back in terror, but it wasn't the light that repelled it.

Clawed hands seized Loki, dragging him away from it. And the pain. The pain was everywhere, in every part of him. His mouth was full of blood. Chitauri guards chittered and hissed at one another over his bent head, dragging him through the puddle of his own blood, smearing it into a long slick. A pang of conscience stung him. Vikunnr's coat. That was two of the old alfin tailor's coats Loki had rendered unwearable in less than one week. Yutta's stitchwork. Ruined.

He let the Chitauri guards drag him along the floor. There was no strength left in his limbs. Where they were taking him, was to their master, that was where he'd meant to go all along.  Loki laughed a breathless, desperate laugh, because what else should he have expected in this nightmare teeming with his own horrors?

The light changed again, from the gray of the Chitauri base, to the hard glitter of starlight once more, and the guards released him. He dropped to the stone.

"Loki of Asgard," said a voice Loki still heard in his dreams. "I gave you a task. One simple task."

He did not want to lift his head, and look Thanos in the face. He was no longer entirely sure this was an illusion.

"You were told," Thanos continued, "that if you failed to bring me the Tesseract, there would be nowhere you could hide from me." Stone crunched under his feet, as he approached. "Not even the coldest, most desolate of realms."

Loki reached out for the Casket again, stretched his mind out for it, hunting in the darkness, but he felt nothing, heard nothing. _Come to me,_ he told it _. I command you. Come to me._

"Loki," the Thanos-thing said silkily. "Look at me."

Thus compelled, Loki had no choice. He lifted his head. Thanos towered over him, tall as one of Loki's ettin, clad in armor that seemed to suck light into itself. Its flesh was as bone-white as that of Loki's double, its eyes as dark.  

It was the battlefield when the battle was done, and the armies had carried away their dead. The feasting hall when the wine had run dry. It was a shadow of Loki, without his tricks, without his clever tongue. Loki, with no one left to mourn him.

"You are not Thanos." Loki said.

He gathered himself to rise to his feet, but the thing that was not Thanos extended one hand, casually, and knocked Loki to his knees once more.

"Does it matter?" it replied. "I will be, in time. I will be everything. Including you. And your precious Jotunheim."

Loki curved his mouth into a smile as sharp as a blade. "But, you aren't me. Not yet."

He _was_ Jotunheim. Thistilbardi had reminded him of that often enough. He called the ice, and a blade formed in his hand, glittering in the dark air. The Thanos-thing roared and charged him, one massive fist upraised. As Loki dove under its wild swing, he heard it. The song of the Casket inside his head, clear and sweet. His ice blade skidded across the thing's armor with a screech and a spray of ice shards. Darkness enveloped him like a cloak. There were creatures inside of it. Scaly things, and things that scuttled. Things that chirred and chittered and hissed, the beating of a thousand wings against Loki's skin, the smells of cinders and carrion so thick he could taste them on his tongue.

The corruption wanted him? Very well, it could have him. All of him, and all of Jotunheim. He thrust his blade into the seething blackness, plunged it deep, and twisted it.

 _Take that,_ he wanted to say, but he dared not open his mouth in the midst of that buzzing darkness. _Take me. Ice and snow and bitter chill. Madness and heartbreak. Eat that, and I hope you choke on it._

The Thanos-thing screamed, and flung him away. Loki flew through the air, landing hard on the rocky ground. He flung up an arm to shield himself against the wind shrieking around him, swirling with ashes and dead leaves. The thing collapsed inward on itself, writhing and howling, Thanos' form twisting and crumpling into nothing.

He pulled the signal device out of his coat, and triggered it. If the Midgardians couldn't retrieve him, there was nowhere he could escape. He was still inside this place that was not a place. The stony ground and the sky above it were swiftly dissolving into gray-white, silent nothing, along with the thing that was not Thanos.

He didn't want to die. Not this time. He wanted to win, and he wanted everything that came after winning. His realm and his people, safe. To be congratulated, to celebrate, to drink too much. For Thor to clap him on the back, and Tony to clasp his hand; for Sigyn to kiss him and tell him, _You see, Loki? This is why I love you._

Apparently, over the past year, he'd become disgustingly sentimental.

A rush and rustle of wings behind Loki made him twist around. He expected to see his black-eyed double, or perhaps some new, unguessed-at horror. Instead found himself looking up into the Allfather's creased and careworn face. Above Odin's head, a single raven circled. Hugin, Munin's brother. Hugin fluttered down to land on Odin's shoulder.

The Allfather looked weary, but no longer wasted and ancient. His single blue eye was sharp and bright.  He held out a hand.  "Loki, now. Quickly."

Too startled to protest, Loki grasped the Allfather's offered hand, and let Odin pull him to his feet.

Odin lifted his gaze to the disintegrating sky. "Heimdall, I've found him."

The Bifrost opened in a burst of brilliant light, and swept them away.

It delivered Loki and Odin not to Asgard, but to Jotunheim instead, to the mouth of the narrow valley that led to Koninghöll. The Casket did not rush to greet Loki with a swirl of snow and wind. It shrank back from the Allfather's presence as if shy of him.

Loki let go of Odin's arm, stepping away. "Why have you brought me here?"

He heard the sharpness in his voice, felt the coil of resentment tightening in his stomach. He knew exactly what the Allfather would answer: Jotunheim was where a Frost Giant belonged.

"Sigyn is here," Odin said. "Is this not where you wish to be?"

Loki felt his cheekbones grow hot. He hadn't been aware jotunar were even capable of blushing. He looked away from Odin. Something had changed, he realized. He swept a look around the steep walls of the valley, expecting to see… something. A fugitive shadow slinking away, perhaps. But there was nothing. He cast his senses like a net, seeking the darkness. There it was. Not overruning everything, not maddened with hunger and desire, but precisely where it ought to be. A thread of shadow running through the weave of reality.

"I will not trouble you overlong," Odin added. "I only wished to thank you."

Loki frowned. _For what?_ he thought. _For cleaning up the mess you made with your meddling?_ The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he did not voice them. The same might just as easily be said of Loki himself. If only he had left well enough alone...

But, he did not want to be thanked. Not by the Allfather.

Hugin took wing from Odin's shoulder with a loud squawk. It was answered by another cry. Munin came streaking toward them from the direction of the palace. The ravens circled one another, flapping and cawing.

"We had best move out of the way," said Odin.

Overhead, the Bifrost opened again. Its brilliant beam shot down, depositing a single figure. Thor rushed out from the cascading light. Loki's mouth had only just shaped the first bit of his brother's name, when Thor scooped him into a crushing hug.

"I feared the worst," Thor said. "I feared you lost again."

With a smile, Odin stepped into the still-streaming Bifrost. Hugin and Munin swooped to follow him.

Loki elbowed Thor out of the way. "Wait."

Odin turned back.

"You saved me," Loki said. "Thank you."

"You wanted to be saved," Odin replied. "That is thanks enough. Return to Asgard whenever you wish, Loki. You will always be welcome. You and your jotunar."

Loki raised his eyebrows.

Odin smiled. "A realm must change, if it is to thrive. Even the Realm Eternal."

Thor, for a wonder, did not speak, did not urge his father and his brother to embrace, and put the past behind them. It had not always been like this. They had not always been enemies. Loki wished Thor _would_ speak, if only so Loki could angrily refuse his brother's suggestion.

"Loki," Odin said.

Loki glanced up, eyes narrowed.

"I am proud of you."

Odin stepped into the Bifrost. It swirled into a pinpoint of light and disappeared. Thor laid his hand across Loki shoulders, as if reassuring himself that Loki was real and whole. Loki felt neither.

"I've decided to impose myself on Jotunheim's hospitality," Thor said. "For a long visit, this time."

Loki smiled. Well... what was one more guest, when he already had so many?

***

Loki clasped his hands behind him, and looked out over the valley, at the snowfall collecting on the rocks. The gigantic bas-relief of Loki carved into the rock wall opposite him was finished at last, and just as ridiculous and embarrassing as it had ever been, with its smugly complacent smile. How he envied it. Thor had left for Asgard, but returned not two days later, bearing the news of what Heimdall had seen: Gislavotn had remade itself. Loki had thought the lands of Vanaheim lost forever, but it was not so. Kambrekk returned, and soon Hjallsmuli followed. Not only the lands of Vanaheim, but their people.

"You must go," Loki had told Sigyn. "Of course you must."

Sigyn had embraced him, and kissed him, and promised him she would return to Jotunheim. She hadn't. Loki did not expect her to. It was one thing for her to cling to him, and confess she loved him, when she had nothing else. Now she had her home, and her family. He couldn't blame her for choosing them over him.

Rock and silt clattered behind him, and he turned as Brisenndyr gained the ridge, to join him at its crest.

"What do you think?" Loki asked

"It is very ettin."

He smiled. Brisenndyr said nothing further, and they stood in silence for a long while, with the snow falling around them.

"You are here often, majesty," Brisenndyr remarked.

There was no reason for Loki to come here. To stand on this ridge overlooking the runes burned into the stone by the Bifrost. To watch and wait. Yet he did.

"It is peaceful here," he said.

He felt it before he saw it: the sharp spike of the Casket at the back of his mind. Power gathering at the edge of Jotunheim. The Bifrost. A spark in the sky, a blaze of light, and it opened, streaming down into the valley. His heart leapt and lodged itself in his throat. He turned to make his way down the ridge, to the valley floor. The Bifrost might well have been bringing Thor to Jotunheim. Or the Allfather. Or a trade delegation from Nidavellir. Even Jane's team; the Midgardians had an open invitation. There was no reason to suppose otherwise

He and Brisenndyr reached the valley floor in minutes, meeting Sigyn as the Bifrost vanished into the clouds. Sigyn, all alone. _Sigyn._

She stretched out her hands, and Loki clasped them, kissed one and then the other. Then he pulled her close to him and kissed her lips.

"I knew it," Brisenndy said from behind him. "I knew she loved you."

Sigyn pulled away from Loki. "I do. I do love you. Loki, my love, forgive me. I did not want to stay away so long -- my mother wouldn't let me leave Hjallsmuli, and _finally_ I had to beg Heimdall to rescue me."

"Never mind," Loki said. "I love you. You're here. Nothing else matters."

Snowflakes dusted her hair; Loki brushed his fingers through her curls, and pressed another kiss to her temple. She smelled of green grass and meadow flowers. A swirl of wind and snow twined itself around them both, welcoming her home at last.

THE END

***

  



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